]]>It’s officially NBA buyout season, and after a brief post-trade deadline flurry of activity, it seems we’re going to ease into the rest of it from here. This is kind of unprecedented territory – the trade deadline was two weeks earlier than it normally is, meaning there are an additional two weeks for teams to negotiate buyouts with players.

Any player waived by March 1 is eligible for the playoffs, and with the All-Star break upcoming, players might not be highly motivated to be freed right this second and surrender a paycheck earlier than they need to. Greg Monroe was able to cash in because the Boston Celtics had a disabled player exception to dangle, but the three names that have already found new homes – Marco Belinelli, Joe Johnson, and Brandan Wright – all gave up between $300K and $1M for their early freedom, according to reports.

That those names have been scooped up seemed to cause Raptors fans some panic, especially since team president Masai Ujiri was adamant that the team believes they can land any buyout player they decide they want. They also have the prorated amount of their bi-annual exception to dangle, though a minimum contract would seem far more likely given their financial situation. The Raptors having faith in landing whomever probably didn’t apply to Wright, who is useful but redundant on this roster, or Johnson, who may not fit the culture and is shooting 27 percent on threes as he enters an overdue twilight. It’s less clear with Belinelli, who is probably the best offensive player who will become available in this period, as the Raptors were said to have interest. Still, Belinelli is borderline unplayable on defense, has a relationship with Philadelphia 76ers general manager Bryan Colangelo, and may not have been partial to an 11th- or 12th-man role the Raptors were offering.

None of those players were going to shift the playoff outlook dramatically. It’s unlikely anybody who lands in Toronto, or anywhere, will. Buyout season is exciting because it’s found money, but for every 2016 Joe Johnson on the Miami Heat, there are a half-dozen Jason Thompsons. Depth is nice to have, adding experience helps, and the Raptors have likely cleared enough wiggle room beneath the tax to add a player. Just keep expectations for their impact reasonable.

In putting out a call for buyout market suggestions on Twitter the other day, I welcomed a hellstorm of the ridiculous. That’s my fault, I guess, for trying to make sure I had my bases covered. What follows is a look at all of the names thrown out there. You jerks.

Vince Carter

There’s not much sense in writing something here, as everyone has already dug in on either side. I thought Daniel Hackett did a really nice job of outlining the case for a Carter return, and I thought Tim Chisholm did a really nice job of outlining the case against it. Personally, I’d be for it, because I’m a sucker for a tidy ending and I maybe wouldn’t have found my way to basketball without Carter, and so while maybe he doesn’t “deserve” it or whatever, I think the fans do.

On the court, it doesn’t really matter – Carter can still shoot and can still defend – and still dunk – but he’d be playing a depth role here, not taking minutes from any of the players in the 10-man rotation. That’s the case for all of the names we’ll examine, anyway, and Carter’s legacy wouldn’t be enough to cut into the focus on the youths. What Carter would bring is a boatload of experience and a veteran presence, which isn’t entirely unimportant at this stage. He has a ton of perspective given his years in the league and the ups and downs he’s been through, and that steadiness, and ability to not shirk in the moment if needed in the playoffs (see his most recent playoff run), could be helpful. It’s probably a moot point, though – Sacramento wants to keep him, and while everyone is playing nice through the rumor mill, there’s a reason Carter chose Sacramento in the first place (money, yes, but also playing time). I’d be surprised if he’s actually bought out.

Chris Bosh

He teased a return on First Take today. If he’s medically capable of playing, a thousand times yes. Not only does he probably still have some juice in the tank, he brings championship experience and fits the good-guys-only mold. He’d be at the top of my list if I had the medical knowledge to know if this was actually a possibility.

Bosh was putting up 19.1-7.4-2.4, hitting 36.5% on 3s, and playing quality defense when he had to hit pause two years ago. Still just 33. Championship experience. And one of the best dudes out there.

Channing Frye

My dream addition so I can kick Will and Eric out as my podcast co-parts and bring Road Trippin to Toronto, it seems unlikely Frye will get bought out. Ramona Shelburne reported almost immediately after the trade that he’d stay put, and Frye is not only a west coast guy but has a relationship with Luke Walton. The young Lakers still need mentors and good examples, and there are few better than Frye, who would consistently earn All-NBA Good-Guy Team nods if such a thing existed.

He can also shoot the hell out of the ball, which the Raptors know all too well. He’s a 38.8-percent career 3-point shooter and hit 39.7 percent over the last three seasons before having a small down-turn (34.1 percent) this year. He’s a passable defensive rebounder, too, and has no problem moving the ball within an offense. He’s not much of a defender, especially on the perimeter, despite what Real Plus-Minus might try to tell you, but the Raptors would only be using him as a small-minute offensive spark, anyway. If at all. As far as late additions with serious experience who would fit the culture and system and are probably fine with small minutes go, Frye is among the better options. He’s just unlikely to be bought out.

Tony Allen

The Grindfather checks off a lot of boxes. He has tons of playoff experience at this point, having appeared in 112 playoff games over 10 postseason runs and having won a ring in 2008. He is familiar with playing a smaller role, averaging 12.4 minutes for New Orleans this year before being dealt. He’s a gritty, hard-nosed, high-effort defender who can still slot in at multiple positions. And, while that grit comes off a certain way when he’s an opponent, that’s a player type you usually want to go to war with. Allen can’t really shoot – 32.1 percent on 0.9 attempts per-36 minutes the last four years – and that would be a problem if he saw actual playing time. He probably wouldn’t, though. or at least not much. He’d be pushing Norman Powell for 11th-man minutes and maybe serving as a mentor to Powell. At 36, Allen’s most productive years are behind him, but “loads of experience” is usually not a bad thing to inject a team with, assuming the role and culture fit are there.

Ersan Ilyaosva

Honestly, this is probably the best-case scenario with the names who could become available. That availability is a question mark, even though he doesn’t seem a fit with the rebuilding Hawks, who just bought out Marco Belinelli. Bobby Marks of ESPN listed Ilyasova as an unlikely buyout candidate, and while he didn’t say why, it may be that the Hawks will see value in hanging on to Ilyasova’s Bird rights into a summer where few teams figure to have cap space. Maybe they can wrangle a pick in a sign-and-trade, or re-up Ilyasova to continue soaking up minutes while the younger players develop.

In any case, he’d be interesting if he became available. At 6-foot-10, Ilyaosva provides some nice spacing as a large power forward or even as a center, where he’s spent more and more time the last couple of years. A career 36.6-percent 3-point shooter, Ilyasova has maintained that touch even as he’s bounced around rosters, shooting 36.5 percent on 5.6 attempts per-36 minutes over the last four seasons (across six teams). He’s not a particularly strong defensive rebounder but does well on the offensive glass, draws fouls at a decent clip with his physicality, and can keep the ball moving on offense. Defensively, he’s mostly just size at this point, grading out as about average for the position by Real Plus-Minus.

The Hawks have been better with him on the floor than off of it, as all three of his teams were last year. He’s still just 30. He doesn’t have much playoff experience but has been there a handful of times. This is probably the best the Raptors can hope for, even if he’d still just be additional depth behind the young bigs. He’s still useful.

Gerald Henderson

Psychologically, this is similar to bringing Joe Johnson in. The guy who’s killed you for so long that The Gerald Henderson Award exists? Cathartic. And when he was last playing, he was still a moderately useful wing who had begun to knock down threes (35.3 percent over the last two seasons) with some reliability. The Raptors were even said to have interest in the summer. Instead, Henderson underwent hip surgery. Apparently, he’s been working out and is ready to go, but like with some of the names on this list, his utility might come down to health, information that I’m not privy to. I will say I thought he was a decent low-cost depth flier before news of his hip injury came down this summer, so if he’s anywhere close to form, there would be worse last-minute additions, especially since his situation dictates he might be fine playing an emergency role. (Whether you’d want a rusty player in said emergency role is a different question.)

Dewayne Dedmon

He’d be a useful piece for somebody if he hit the market, with two complicating factors here for Toronto. One, I doubt very much they’d give a buyout claim rotation minutes over Jakob Poeltl, and minutes at center are already going to be hard to come by in the postseason. Dedmon has added the 3-point shot to his game, is a quality rim protector, and a good defensive rebounder, but it’s not at all an area of need. Two, Dedmon has a player option for next season, which could make buyout terms pretty difficult to come to for the Hawks.

Boris Diaw

HEAR ME OUT. The Raptors were said to be interested in Diaw this summer, and while he’s out of the NBA, the 35-year-old is still playing professionally. He’s averaging 11.8 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 4.9 assists in the French League right now, and his passing from the frontcourt positions would be welcome. He’s even hit 37.3 percent of his threes! Diaw wouldn’t have much on-court utility to the Raptors at this point – he’s not exactly flush with NBA athleticism – but spiritually, he fits the culture’s new ethos, would be an excellent and experienced locker room presence, and would have an espresso machine in his locker so your boy can get his fix. Is my long-term wish for Diaw to land in Toronto entirely self-serving? Absolutely it is.

Nando de Colo

The Raptors still hold de Colo’s rights in restricted free agency, and de Colo is still very good. The issue, of course, is that he plays for CSKA Moscow on a healthy deal that runs two more years. CSKA is also atop the EuroLeague table, and that postseason doesn’t wrap up until late May if they make the run they could. The Raptors will once again tender him a qualifying offer this summer and retain his rights a while longer.

Luol Deng

Deng still has two years on his deal after this one at a hefty price tag, so any buyout negotiations would probably be very difficult. Even if he were to be freed, he’s played all of one game this year. He hasn’t been a terribly effective offensive player the last chunk of his career (he’s shot 32.8 percent on threes over his last six seasons) but he was still a passable defender the last we saw him, and sitting on the sidelines doesn’t make him any less 6-foot-9 or any less savvy. To be honest, though, so much of this would have to do with faith in his health and intel about his culture fit, neither of which I can speak to.

Corey Brewer

Not exactly the Laker people most want bought out, I realize, and Brewer can’t shoot a lick, with a career 28-percent mark from long-range that’s somehow declined the last few years. He’s long, can guard multiple positions (advanced metrics hate his offense but grade him as roughly neutral defensively), and is a good enough culture guy that the Lakers have kept him around their young core instead of banishing him. Again, these are the kind of low-impact guys you’re usually looking at in the buyout bin. He would at least bring championship experience (on the Dwane Casey-assisted Mavericks) and has appeared in the postseason on five different occasions, which isn’t nothing.

Shabazz Muhammad

I still think it would be weird for the Wolves to buy Muhammad out. I know he’s unhappy and out of the rotation, but are playoff teams really in the business of waiving guys who have been shown to be productive pieces in the past? Muhammad’s deal also has a player option for next year that Minnesota may have to buy out some of, and they’d surrender his Bird rights for the event that he declines the option (it’s possible someone would actually claim Muhammad on waivers, given his low salary). If he were to hit the market, I don’t see the fit – Muhammad can score, but he does so inefficiently and doesn’t bring much else to the table. I don’t mean to be negative about him, as I’ve been a fan of his since UCLA, I just think he’s destined to average 20 on a bad team, not play spot minutes for a good one.

Arron Afflalo

He would seem the likeliest buyout candidate from the mess in Orlando, and I understand why teams would be interested given his track record. He wouldn’t hurt or anything. But the years of Afflalo being a productive NBA player on a good team are behind him. His reputation as a defender has expired, the Magic have been much worse with him on the floor this year, his playmaking has declined, and he’d really just be a low-end 3-point specialist. By multi-year Player Impact Plus-Minus, he’s one of the worst players in the NBA right now. Again, it wouldn’t hurt if he’s not playing – Afflalo seems the type to accept a small role and be happy to just add leadership – this is just kind of the wing version of Thompson from two years ago.

Mario Hezonja

There’s no way the Magic are going to buy him out now that he’s finally assumed his form as the Swag God and is their best offensive weapon.

Anthony Morrow

There is one person on Twitter who has been obsessed with Morrow as a buyout candidate, something I would be in favor of if his Twitter handle were still BlackBoiPacino (his Instagram handle of yungfresh isn’t bad). My guess is that the logic is his 3-point shooting – Morrow has hit 41.7 percent of his career NBA threes over 564 games, ranking him in the top-20 all time. The issue, of course, is that Morrow never developed another NBA skill, and so while he saw heavy run early in his career and in his first season in Oklahoma City, the bulk of his last few seasons were spent as a specialist. It’s not a great individual stat in isolation, but it’s telling that Morrow owns one of the 50 worst career defensive ratings since the stat became available nearly 40 years ago.

On the bright side, Morrow is available. He’s not playing anywhere and, if he hasn’t decided to retire, he probably knows how to keep himself ready at 32 years old. If all the Raptors want in that 15th spot is someone who can come in and get hot in a hurry, Morrow isn’t a terrible fit. And it’s not like there’s a clear path to minutes outside of a specialist role, anyway.

Mo Speights

This could be a decent fit in terms of skill-set, though Speights would obviously have to be willing to accept a much smaller role than he has in Orlando, where he’s using 26.7 percent of possessions when he’s on the floor. The Raptors would probably only need him as a shooting specialist at the center position – hardly an area of need – where his 37.2-percent mark on 7.3 threes per-36 minutes over the last three years could help. A minor issue might be negotiating a buyout, since Speights already makes the minimum and might not be willing to concede much money to the Magic to join a contender. It would free up more playing time and a potential roster spot for a two-way conversion for Khem Birch, so maybe the Magic will be motivated to let the 30-year-old go. They don’t have Bird or Early Bird rights on him, anyway.

Isaiah Thomas

Only if Jesse Mermuys comes with him. (It doesn’t sound like the Lakers are going to buy Thomas out, I think he wants to be there, and even if he was bought out, I don’t think there’s any chance he’d go somewhere with a minimized role or anything but the green light to rehabilitate his value ahead of free agency.)

LeBron James

Smart. This is a good choice. Make it happen, Drake. If the Raptors can land LeBron for free at the veteran minimum, they’d be right there as a title favorite. Heck, give him the bi-annual and go into the tax if you need to.

Kyrie Irving

P.J. Brown

While he’s a three-time All-Defense player and a former NBA champion, he’s been out of the league for a decade. If you’re going this route, Jamaal Magloire is already right there. Funny side-note: When Magloire was running the bigs through one of their pre-game workouts last week, he was shouting about trying to get a 10-day. So, you may not be far off here.

Jared Sullinger

He actually fits the current system a lot better than the one he tried to fit into last year, as he’s always shown decent playmaking ability in the frontcourt and is used to a more democratic offensive approach. He’s putting up 30 points, 17 rebounds, and four assists per-game in China right now and even shooting 36.2 percent on threes. I don’t think this was a serious suggestion, but Sullinger is still only 25. Some team might give him a look this summer.

Jimmer Fredette

This one actually isn’t as crazy as it sounds, only because Fredette probably has a good shot at getting a 10-day somewhere when the Chinese season ends. Yeah, he’s 28 and has already had a number of chances, but are you really gonna put it past the Knicks or a team in need of scoring to pass on a guy averaging 37 points on 60-percent true-shooting for a second year in a row? He wouldn’t at all fill any need for the Raptors as a one-way scoring punch, but it wouldn’t be entirely surprising to hear his name surface somewhere. I’m very curious to see what kind of numbers Brady Heslip could put up in China.

Aaron Gray

I’m skeptical the Pistons would be willing to give him up. Maybe in an offseason swap for Jamaal Magloire? Feels like a deal both sides say no to. Familiarity is important when it comes to the role of “that coach that will just hammer on bigs as they warm up.”

Rafael Araujo

As much as people dislike Araujo, he does have one big thing to his credit: In his college days, he elbowed the hell out of Andrew Bogut. Does that make up for two terrible seasons and a wasted lottery pick? Honestly, maybe, and had the Celtics signed Bogut, I would have advocated for an Araujo insurance policy. Fun fact: Araujo finished his professional career alongside Bruno Caboclo with Pinheiros/Sky in 2013-14. (From his Instagram, it really looks like Araujo is living his best life. Good for him.)

Pops Mensah-Bonsu

Played a career-high 19 games with the Raptors in 2008-09 and pops up every so often as a scout for the San Antonio Spurs. A very nice person, it seems unlikely he’s still in game shape after three years away from the pro game. If nothing else, he’d have some of the opponents well-scouted, if he’s good at his new job.

Solomon Alabi

Did all these suggestions just come from Sean Woodley burner accounts? Alabi is actually still just 29 and an active professional player, so this isn’t the most outlandish of the suggestions. I have no idea how his Japanese League stats might translate or what his buyout situation is. Maybe all he needs is more G League time? He was, after all, the Raptors’ fourth ever D-League assignment after Pape Sow, P.J. Tucker, and Nathan Jawai. The good ol’ days.

Jorge Garbajosa

The president of the Spanish Basketball Federation is probably too busy keeping Sergio Llull on lockdown to keep him from the Houston Rockets. That’s not unimportant to the Raptors – the Rockets signing Joe Johnson means the Raptors and Rockets are probably meeting in the NBA Finals, and Garbajosa locking down Llull lends a hand without tying up a roster spot.

Bruno Caboclo

Don’t think I didn’t have this conspiracy theory on my mind when the trade initially went down. The Raptors weren’t going to tender Caboclo a qualifying offer this summer anyway, so they haven’t lost much in dealing him as it pertains to retaining him for next year, if he’s open to a minimum deal. When it looked as if the Kings would waive him post-trade, I even figured that maybe he’d enter the G League player pool and Raptors 905 could work out a deal to secure his rights if they didn’t land him on waivers (his G League rights are unowned since he’s always been an assignment player, not a full-time G Leaguer). Alas, it looks like the Kings will hang on to him and we’ll have to revisit this on July 1.

All of the Plumlee brothers

If they’re going to sign a Plumlee, might I suggest Murphy plumLee? I could really use the 10-day payout.

LP420

I believe he’s set to be announced by another organization soon,

Mayor McCoy

Can’t afford the culture risk associated with someone who just resigned in disgrace.

Andrea Bargnani

I’m glad we cast such a wide net in our search, because we finally found the answer. If there’s a problem with the Raptors so far this year, it’s that they have too many good players they can’t find room for and want to fit into the lineup. Bringing in Bargnani, who was an on/off-court negative with Baskonia of the Spanish ACB League last year, solves that issue. Our man had negative win shares The Raptors have exactly zero players who have played more than 13 minutes and a negative net rating, and Bargnani fits the bill as someone who can come into blowouts, help make the games close again, and get the Raptors the reps they need closing out tight games.

]]>https://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2018/02/16/examining-potential-buyout-candidates-raptors/feed/0The Raptors are a Championship Contenderhttps://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2018/02/12/raptors-championship-contender/
https://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2018/02/12/raptors-championship-contender/#respondMon, 12 Feb 2018 16:00:19 +0000https://www.raptorsrepublic.com/?p=90140It’s clear when investigating the accomplishments of the 2017-18 Raptors that they are a real and serious threat to win the championship

]]>For as many different NBA champions have existed, there have been far fewer paths to victory. Competing for the title follows a somewhat tried-and-true path, which has few exceptions. Are the 2017-18 Toronto Raptors following the mold, as it were, of champions? Of course, some tenets of contention are self-fulfilling prophecies, to which we’ll return later. For now, let’s delve into whether or not the Raptors should be considered contenders, by first defining what makes an NBA contender. For this article, I’ll define a championship contender as a team with a top-5 offence and defence (give or take on both ends), a top-15 player(s) in the league, more than one dominant lineup, and playoff experience. The Raptors have each of those pillars and more.

Offensive and Defensive Dominance

The Raptors boast one of the best offences in the game. Despite taking a huge number of 3s, and only shooting them at an average rate, the Raptors have the 6th best eFG% in the league greatly due to their terrific midrange and close range finishing. A proclivity to hoisting the 3-points shot opens up the floor for this new Raptors team. By points scored per possession, the Raptors rank 4th in the league, per Cleaning the Glass. The Raptors offence begins with an incredible pick and roll attack. Here’s some statistics from a piece I wrote in mid-January about the Raps’ PnR attack:

“The Raptors’ offence is elite when one of its elite pick and roll handlers plays with one of its best pick and roll screeners (no surprises there). In the 368 possessions in which Delon Wright has played with one of Jonas Valanciunas, Jakob Poeltl, or Lucas Nogueira, the team’s offensive rating is 119.8 points per 100 possessions. DeMar DeRozan’s 1128 possessions with one of the three centers has yielded 119.0 points per 100 possessions.”

Beyond the pick and roll, they have one of the league’s best passers and shot-creators in DeMar DeRozan. His assist rate of 24.1% is in the 96th percentile for wings. He can create off the ball as an improved shooter and terrific cutter, out of the pick and roll as a handler, and in isolation. He is able to make on-time and on-target passes with either hand, and he fluidly reads passing lanes that aren’t visible to most players. His sprays to corners are something out of a fairy tale. Perhaps most impressive, though, is his ability to use his interior scoring threat to draw the help while accurately dumping the ball to waiting bigs:

That the defence is even better is more surprising. The Raptors have several rotation players who have been rightly maligned in the past for their defensive consistency, including DeRozan, Valanciunas, and Miles. They’ve all improved, especially Valanciunas recently. More than that, several elite 1-on-1 defenders have sprung up on the roster where there was once just potential. Anunoby is an outrageously talented on- and off- ball defender, as I detailed here. Pascal Siakam went from a raw and mistake-prone (due, fortunately, to constant effort) rookie defender to someone who can be trusted for short stretches to defend LeBron James 1-on-1:

Lowry is a terror at ripping steals and forcing charges, even if he is slightly worse this year at containing penetration. Delon Wright is a long-armed menace, forcing turnovers and blocking shots like a center. His rearview contest is so consistent that he’s a threat to block every jumpshot taken in his vicinity. Fred VanVleet is as smart as they come, which is a feature of the whole defence; players switch seamlessly, call out pick and roll defensive schemes, and are always on the same page. Most of all, the team’s defensive gameplan is solid, and the players rarely make mistakes. Guards almost always go above screens and fight like hell to recover to their men. Bigs sink on picks to contain penetration and deny passes into the lane; Casey no longer asks more of Valanciunas than his bulky frame can provide.

The result is that the team allows fewer attempted 3s than anyone but the Brooklyn Nets, with a fertile field of midrange shots for opponents. Opposing ball-handlers take oodles of midrange jumpers that initially appear open, but upon the release of the ball are contested from behind:

So the Raptors have a top-5 offence and defence. This is not a stringent requirement for a championship contender, but every recent champ has been close. Here’s a chart of all the champions since 2006 and their league ranks on offence and defence:

GS

Cle

GS

SA

Mia

Mia

Dal

LA

LA

Bos

SA

Mia

SA

Det

Year

17

16

15

14

13

12

11

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

O-Rank

1

3

2

7

1

6

8

10

1

9

5

5

8

13

D-Rank

2

10

1

4

9

4

8

3

5

1

2

9

1

2

Rank is calculated by points per 100 possession scored and allowed, taken from Cleaning the Glass

That’s average rankings of 6th-best on offence and 4th-best on defence. The Raptors, due to their above-mentioned dominance, are ranked 4th on offence and 3rd on defence. Consider this a mark in their favour.

Top Player(s)

Since 1990, the best player on a championship-winning team has been (without duplications): Steph Curry (or Kevin Durant), LeBron James, Tim Duncan (or Kawhi Leonard), Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Dwyane Wade, Chauncey Billups (or Ben Wallace), Shaq, Michael Jordan, and Hakeem Olajuwon. Go back a little further and it’s basically just Larry Birds and Magic Johnsons all the way down. Each of those were top-15 players (give or take a few charitable rankings in the cases of one or two guys) in the league, and most were top-5. Everyone on that list is hall of fame bound.

This is where self-fulfilling prophecies come into play. Guys like Nowitzki, Billups, and even young Wade (back when he had the awesome nickname Flash, before the self-bequeathed and horrible nickname Way of Wade) did not get the respect they deserved before their championships. They weren’t frequently considered top players in the league until they won their championships, even if their level of play afterwards hadn’t improved. DeMar DeRozan is a borderline top-15 player in the league, and he’d fall into most every pundit’s 15-20 ranking bracket. Give him a ring? He’s on all the top-10 lists for certain.

The Raptors already have the high-end talent to compete for a championship. They may not have Michael Jordan- or LeBron James-level talents on their team, but DeRozan and Kyle Lowry are equivalent league talents to Billups in 2004. Using Jacob Goldstein’s Player Impact Plus/Minus, Lowry is a top-25 player, and DeRozan is a top-15 player on offence. Lowry is top-15 in all of ESPN’s real Plus Minus, VORP, and Basketball Reference’s Box Score Plus Minus. If you don’t trust catch-all, advanced statistics (and you shouldn’t, not entirely), then there are other, simpler ways to prove how elite are Toronto’s stars. DeRozan is one of the league’s most accomplished scorers, ranking 13th in straight points per game after seizing 5th in the league last year. He’s one of a handful of players in the league around whom an entire offence can be designed. He and Lowry are both multi-year all-stars, recognized by their peers, media, and fans alike. And elite talent is not even Toronto’s greatest strength.

Multiple Successful Lineups

Another important feature of championship teams is that they offer a constantly high level of play throughout games. No matter who is on the floor and who is on the bench, champions remain dominant. Golden State’s 2017 championship team boasted 8 lineups with +7 net ratings or higher, only three of which combined Curry and Durant. 2014 San Antonio’s 2nd most successful lineup was all-bench, combining Patty Mills, Marco Belinelli, Manu Ginobili, Boris Diaw, and Jeff Ayres. Big 3 era Miami’s Lebron + bench lineups were destructive, with a net rating of +20 in both championship seasons. Consistently, when all-stars rest, championship teams still outscore their opponents.

Toronto is surpassing their spiritual ancestor, the 2014 Spurs, in that their most successful lineup is all-bench. The lineup of Fred VanVleet, Delon Wright, C.J. Miles, Pascal Siakam, and Jakob Poeltl is tearing through opponents like Michael Bay through a film’s budget. They have a net rating of +32.8 in a robust 147 minutes, which makes them the best lineup (+100 minutes played) by rating in the league. Toronto practically Donkey Kong ground-pounds teams whenever both squads put the bench on the floor.

The 2017-18 Raptors have separated themselves from their previous iterations in that every lineup is successful. The Raptors starters and bench are both incredibly successful. In the past, the Raptors’ success has mostly coincided with Lowry’s playing time (excluding a short stretch last year when Lowry was injured and DeRozan led the team to a winning record regardless). This year they’re blowing teams out no matter who is playing or who is scoring.

Narrative

The Raptors even have the history of a champion. A championship team must have a history of playoff success and failure. My first ever basketball article was about this: “Institutional memory matters. Let’s go back some ways to prove this: since Magic Johnson’s rookie season in 1979-1980, every NBA championship team preceded its championship with prolonged playoff success but eventual failure. Before teams win, they have to get close to winning, and then lose. Every champion for the past few decades followed this pattern except one, which was the ferocious 2007-2008 Celtics, who were built on a whim. Teams in the NBA generally cannot succeed without recent histories of success. Players as dominant as Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James could not win championships without establishing a culture of success and then winning, or joining teams that were already successful. The Big 3 Celtics just somehow changed the culture in Boston faster than usual. Trading young Al Jefferson for prime Kevin Garnett can do that for a franchise. And even then, all three individuals had toiled as playoff also-rans prior to joining forces.”

The Raptors have had recent playoff success – culminating in multiple series victories, including two game 7s – that ended in the playoff defeat at the hands of LeBron James. They are experienced in the playoffs; remember, LeBron James was once (incorrectly) considered a playoff choke artist, until he wasn’t. If the Raptors break out this year, the Cavaliers will have been their foil, as the Pistons were to Jordan and the Celtics to James. The narrative is there.

Conclusion

The Raptors have the resume of a champion. Their success in recent years has culminated in this year’s roster, which is different from years past. They are more consistent and more dominant, on both sides of the ball. Given blind samplings of team statistics, the Raptors would compare favourably to championship-winning teams of the past few decades. 538’s CARM-Elo rankings, which historically have been less-than-kind towards the Raptors, rank them as the 3rd-best team in the league, with a 1/5 chance at winning the ultimate title.

Of course, ranking as a worthwhile championship contender is not equivalent to winning the prize. There are scores of teams from the last decades, such as Kevin Durant’s Thunder, whose corpses pave the paths of the eventual champions. The NBA boasts more talent than perhaps ever before, with multiple hall of famers teaming up in both Golden State and Houston. Toronto could very well fail to best their fearsome Western rivals, but that is no reason to discount their chances to do so. No champion is anointed, so we must decipher what qualities were shared by each titleholder; it’s clear when investigating the accomplishments of the 2017-18 Raptors that they are a real and serious threat to win the championship, which has never been true for the Toronto franchise before. Enjoy the ride and the corresponding Twitter victory laps.

Before we go ahead: A reminder that we have a Patreon page at patreon.com/RaptorsRepublic. If you appreciate the content we produce, want to support RR, and have the means to do so, any contribution is greatly appreciated and will help us continue to do what we do (and try to do even more). You can also follow me on Twitter for, uhh, tweets, and on Facebook for all of my writing/podcasting/radio stuff. Validate me.i

Alright, let’s do this.

—

Deadline Talk

Can the raptors trade powell? If so can you see a scenario in which they move him at the deadline?

The Raptors can’t trade Norman Powell. Teams are prohibited from trading a player who signed a veteran extension for six months afterward, which takes Powell off the table at the deadline. He can be dealt again once the Raptors’ are eliminated (e.g. on a draft night trade), and he’ll count at his current salary for matching purposes until July 1, with no poison pill provision. He’s easily the Raptors’ most interesting trade chip on draft night given the ease with which he can be worked into a team’s salary structure pre-raise, and he’s probably their most logical offseason trade chip as the team’s biggest mid-tier salary on a player who should still hold some value.

For deadline purposes alone, Powell’s a no-go. Anyone else on the roster (including two-way players) can be traded. The Raptors can also trade their first-round pick from 2020 onward and their second-round pick from 2019 onward, and include up to $5.1 million in cash in trades.

As for the hard cap, the Raptors have already triggered it by signing C.J. Miles to the non-taxpayer mid-level exception in the summer. Under no circumstances can they exceed $125,266,000 in salary, a number that has to fit in any unlikely bonuses and minimum contracts for any additional players added (e.g. if the Raptors do a two-for-one, you need to account for an extra minimum salary since you have to have 14 players). I went into much greater detail on all of the financials here.

This is a quickie, maybe not worthy of the mailbag. But what happened to the 2nd rounder we got from Orlando after they hired Weltman? Did it get traded? Do we still have it?

The Raptors acquired a second-round pick from the Magic for Jeff Weltman when they hired him away at the end of last season. That was a 2018 pick that was then sent to the Brooklyn Nets in the DeMarre Carroll deal (along with the Raptors’ 2018 first-rounder). The Raptors owe their own second-round pick to Phoenix from the P.J. Tucker deal.

The Raps will have $124 mil committed next season not including their 3 FAs. 1) Is management willing to go into the tax? 2) Hard cap is at $129 mil, even if we go into it, is JV or Norm going to be dumped so we can sign an MLE or a S&T? That has implications for our moves now.

Management is willing to go into the tax, yes. Masai Ujiri is not blowing smoke when he says he has MLSE’s permission to do so, and the way they went about the summer of 2017 said, to me, that 2018-19 will be their big tax-spending year. There’s almost no way to avoid it, anyway, and it looked a few months ago like that would be Toronto’s biggest window.

Part of that is because the Raptors won’t actually be hard-capped again. Unless they use the full mid-level, use the bi-annual exception, or acquire someone via sign-and-trade, they won’t trigger the hard cap and can operate as a normal tax team. That opens up a lot of options, especially with the team armed with two trade exceptions, deals they can move to watch salaries like Powell, and an ability to trade their 2019 first-rounder (once the 2018 draft has occurred, the restriction on dealing the 2019 pick is lifted, as long as they haven’t dealt their 2020 first).

I don’t think there are major implications for this week here, mostly because I believe the Raptors have approached this entire season knowing they’d be a tax team next year. If there’s a consideration – and this is me making a bit of a reach assuming what the levels of Ujiri’s spending autonomy are – is this: The Raptors extended their competitive window through 2019-20, and Ujiri spoke openly about the ability to be a tax team if the situation calls for it.

I would guess that the window-extension came with a rough three-year budget estimate which, while not a hard cap on team spending, is going to be a guiding principle here. So when you see me write about the team trying to skirt the luxury tax this year, it’s not garden variety MLSE cheapness that people seem to assume – an extra $1 million in salary now might also come with a $1.5-million tax bill and the forfeiture of luxury tax payments from other teams, so signing a 15th man buyout candidate might end up costing, say, $3.5 million in real dollars which, while not a big deal as a stand-alone number, may use funds earmarked for later in the competitive window. Again, I’m making some broad assumptions here, but I’d be surprised if the Raptors are looking at their financial situation as isolated years and not as a three-year window as a whole, so if there’s no meaningful addition to be made now, maybe it’s best to keep those dollars for when they can have a greater impact.

Do you think it's a better strategy to hold tight this trade deadline, stay out of tax, and go deep next off-season taking advantage of TPEs and other teams being in a tax crunch? https://t.co/burolNAnyk

So, I kind of covered this above. I’m a little torn, because the window right now is much more open than I (or the Raptors, I think) anticipated. There just aren’t many meaningful moves available to them without mid-tier salaries or a first-round pick to trade, with the hard cap hanging over everything. Come July 1, the Raptors won’t be hard capped, they’ll be able to deal a near-term first, Powell becomes tradeable, and teams will have more cap flexibility to make moves. So it’s not necessarily a strategic preference to wait to take a shot next summer so much as it is the team just having far more tools available to them come July than they do now.

can you explain why we can or can’t use the $11 million and $7 million trade exceptions—and how trade exceptions work in general?

I’m going to link to this article again because it goes really deep on this stuff. In brief, the Raptors triggered the hard cap this summer, so they can’t exceed $125.3 million in salary under any circumstances. So they can technically use those trade exceptions, but they could only use the amount that pushes them to the hard cap, not a penny over. I think they’ll be a lot more useful in the summer (they don’t expire until mid-July).

One note here, in the event the Raptors were super interested in someone in the $5-7 million range: You can structure trades as separate deals in some cases, which offers some creative accounting possibilities. To use a strictly hypothetical example: Say the Raptors wanted Ersan Ilyasova from the Hawks, who makes $6 million. A Lucas Nogueira-for-Ilyasova swap doesn’t work under the trade machine rules, but it works if structured as two separate deals (the Hawks taking back less salary and the Raptors taking Ilyaosva into an exception; the two teams don’t have to structure the trade the same), and the Raptors could hypothetically deal Nogueira to a team with cap room, thereby creating enough space under the tax apron to absorb Ilyasova into the smaller Joseph trade exception.

You’re talking some complicated deals here, and that particular framework probably sees the Raptors giving up too much, but it’s just to show that the smaller exceptioncould come into play if the Raptors found themselves enamored with someone in the mid-salary range.

What type of player should Masai be looking for before deadline? Anyone specific come to mind?

If the Raptors are going to make a move, it’s for an extra shooter. If you’re going to give up one of the core young guys, you basically have to set the bar at Siakam/Powell – both of those guys figure to be on the fringe of the playoff rotation and could likely provide a boost depending on the matchup. There’s little sense moving a long-term asset if it’s not a clear upgrade on one of those guys. That’s going to be really difficult, and there are plenty of benefits to having young, inexpensive, improving players that outweigh “10th man is slightly better if he’s needed in a playoff game.”

If they look a little lower – say, Bebe-and-a-2nd, which is about the maximum that I, the world’s most noted Bebe believer, would be willing to go for a lot of the names bandied about – there are options. Tyreke Evans is probably going to command more, even without Bird rights, especially if Memphis is willing to take salary back. The Raptors might balk at Troy Daniels’ modest salary for 2018-19. He’s the most likely target I can come up with. Joe Harris can shoot but probably doesn’t get playoff minutes on this roster. Ilyaosva and Marco Belinelli are hard to make the math work for. Utah might not be selling to make a Jonas Jerebko type available (and again, we’re back to the question of whether that’s a clear upgrade, anyway). Luke Babbitt probably slots in as a “specialist” only for this team. Not exactly shocking: The league’s bad teams don’t have many good 3-and-D guys on good contracts!

And hey, Michael Beasley is making the minimum and shooting 39.1 percent on threes.

Do u think that the only scenario where Masai would be willing to part with one of the bench guys would be for a star?

Probably, yeah. This is more just the reality of the cap rules, though. Trading a young player on a good salary doesn’t let you bring very much salary back, and there aren’t many clear upgrades that aren’t pure rentals who the math works for. I think they’d cave and move one of them if it meant not having to give up a pick and getting a clear upgrade for the playoff rotation, but I’m skeptical that deal is out there.

You guys are way too mean to Bruno. G League All-Defense Team players who hit 34 percent on threes don’t just grow on trees, nor do they grow with 7-foot-7 wingspans. How dare.

In seriousness, I doubt Caboclo goes. The team has invested four years into him, and it would be incredibly anti-climactic and a major lack of return on that investment if all he ended up being was salary ballast. I think they want to see how the rest of the G League season goes, evaluate his May-June progress, and keep the option open to bring him back on a minimum deal for depth next year. If he keeps progressing, anyway. I don’t see another NBA team valuing Caboclo’s RFA rights because his qualifying offer is too high, so it’d be strictly to match money.

If they’re going to match money, Nogueira seems like the guy – he makes the most of all the young guys, and because he’s shown so much in small flashes, there figures to be some interest in getting a two-month look at him, plus his RFA rights. It’d be tough for me to let him go – I still think he’s going to wind up being a good NBA rotation player, there are some playoff opponents against whom he’d be a better on-paper matchup than Poeltl, and there’s a scenario where he signs his qualifying offer and isn’t an overpay as a third center – but he seems the most likely piece to be outbound.

Seems like there might be some quality forwards available, think the Raps make any moves before the deadline? Derrick Favors perhaps?

There’s not really a way to make the money work for a Favors type. Sending out C.J. Miles for him puts the roster into imbalance, and I doubt the Jazz would take Valanciunas back. Those are the only two frameworks that work financially, and with Favors headed to free agency (and with Valanciunas playing so damn well), the Raptors probably balk at either, anyway. Basically, anyone making more than $7 million coming in would be a surprise, as it’d require a bigger framework than most have anticipated.

(The Grizzlies are cool on dealing Gasol, per Zach Lowe, and he’s looked largely disinterested this year. If Memphis was willing to play ball on a swap, you obviously look long and hard at what they’re asking for on top of Valanciunas. Realistically, if they put Gasol on the market, there are teams that would swoop in and be able to top Toronto’s offer in terms of draft equity.)

Do you see any 3&D types that might become available just for long term cap space relief? Bruno & Bebe aren’t huge salaries but sometimes a team just wants out and both are free agents at the end of the season.

Like with actually unquestioned “good” players who are tough to make salaries work, it’s tough to play predator with longer-term salary. It comes down to this: If a salary is low enough that flipping Nogueira for it is possible, then the salary isn’t large enough for another team to be all that worried about. Troy Daniels is the name I come back to in this example because he’s owed $3.3 million next year, but I can’t imagine the Suns are stressing about that (especially since he’ll be movable in the summer). Maybe one of the really bad teams looking to clear the deck for next year. Those deals probably involve players that are too good for this hypothetical or too expensive. Playing cap-sheet predator isn’t the life for teams that are hard-capped and without mid-level expirings, unfortunately.

If the Kings are truly shopping Skal, could you see the Raps looking into him? I mean, we have had inconsistencies at the back-up 4/5, and he could eventually be a perfect replacement for Ibaka at the stretch-4.

If the Kings were actually dumb enough to shop an interesting prospect around just to create a roster spot opening to absorb salary they’d then buy out, all to acquire a pick – it could be anything, even a Skal! – then yeah, you kick the tires. There’s no need for him on the depth chart, but Ujiri is the type to explore any asset being shopped in distress like that. He looks like he could be a nice piece. The Kings are weird, man.

@BlakeMurphyODC#RRMailbag I wouldn't want to ever trade KLOE, but a hypothetical package for TO for Kawhi would take what — Lowry, OG +? I also realize Spurs won't trade Kawhi but I figured it would pose a fun thought experiment.

I can’t think of a single workable deal for a Kawhi Leonard hypothetical. I don’t believe he is pushing his way out, anyway, but the hypotheticals all center around Valanciunas (a good player but not at give-up-a-superstar level), Ibaka (doubtful anybody is taking on that deal, even when he’s playing well), DeRozan (not happening), or Lowry (see Ibaka). It would be endlessly funny if the Spurs dealt Leonard for some package including Anunoby, though. I think the entire basketball world would just assume he’s going to become Leonard at that point. You could even drop him right into the HEB commercials.

Potential Post-Deadline Tweaks

Two questions: 1) if the Raptors want to pick up someone who gets bought out: a) how can they make that work in terms of roster spots and the hard cap; b) who are possible candidates; c) [hesitantly, embarrassedly whispering] bring Vince home?

Okay, so I’m going to zoom through this because it’s a planned post-deadline post that requires a bit more detail and some assumptions. Quickly: The Raptors have a 15th roster spot open, they may or may not already be over the tax line (we don’t know all of the details on Lowry/DeRozan unlikely bonuses, so it’s hard to know for sure), and they can offer either the minimum salary or a prorated amount of the bi-annual exception to a potential buyout candidate (if they use the bi-annual, they forfeit the ability to use it next year, but that might not matter since it would trigger the hard cap next year, anyway).

In terms of candidates, Joe Johnson and Channing Frye are the likeliest names that will come up. I’m skeptical about Vince Carter – he’s talked openly about signing in Sacramento because he valued playing time over ring-chasing – and the rest, who knows? This is more of a post-deadline question. I think the Raptors will kick the tires on guys, especially if they know internally that they’re already over the tax line. Don’t expect anyone who’s a potential chemistry risk or would come in expecting a certain role right away.

Does the all-star break mess up team synergy? Do teams often go on a run/dive after the break? Crystal ball:Will the raps?

I can definitely see the argument for the break being disruptive, with one caveat: All 30 teams experience the same break. So it should all wash out. I’d think for a team like the Raptors, it’ll be a benefit. They had one of the toughest early schedules, they rely on four veteran players who would probably appreciate the break (DeRozan is close to last year’s minutes total because he hasn’t gotten hurt, Lowry’s minutes are down but he’s taken a beating, Ibaka looks better after one or two days off, and Miles has dealt with a few minor things), and their young players are at some risk of a physical or mental “wall” since most of them haven’t played full 82-game schedules before (in fact, none of the team’s young players have stayed in an NBA rotation for an entire season before).

So it should help. Last year, the Raptors came out of the break down Lowry, with two new additions to work in, and were terrific against a cupcake schedule. The slate isn’t that easy this time around, though it’s pretty home-heavy and very light on travel. I don’t think the week off will cost them much.

A question looking towards the playoffs. Can the raptors go 10 (or 11) deep in the playoffs? How many minutes does the bench get when we get to the playoffs?

Also, how much does FVV get this offseason and can raptors retain him?

I did a small study on how teams use their benches come playoff time earlier in the year, and the takeaway was this: Almost every team cuts its bench usage in the postseason, the Raptors have been no exception the last two years, and the logic holds up. Think 10 percent fewer bench minutes as a rough approximation, which would still be a lot – the Raptors play their bench more than any playoff team right now.

Depth is great, but there’s a prisoner’s dilemma issue here – if both teams keep their rotation the same as the regular season, they’ll both be at their best over an entire series, and if both shorten the rotation and lean more heavily on their stars, they’ll be on equal footing at an equal cost for future rounds. It probably benefits both teams to stick to a deeper rotation. The issue is that the edge you’d gain by shortening yours is so large – the Raptors bench is now stuck playing against starter-heavy groups, negating some of their edge against all-bench groups – that both teams will eventually find their way to playing shorter rotations, anyway.

This doesn’t mean the depth isn’t important. It’s going to get Lowry, DeRozan, Ibaka, and Miles to the postseason fresher. It’s going to expedite the growth of the young players and give the Raptors a better idea of who should/shouldn’t be in the playoff rotation. It’s going to make Casey more confident in calling on any of those guys as the matchup or game flow dictates. I know some hate hearing this, but I think the Raptors will be best-served with a slightly tighter playoff rotation, a few more minutes for the stars, and a non-shooter falling out of the mix and sliding into the 2016 and 2017 Norman Powell Emergency Series Saver role.

In terms of tactics, they’re playing at a much faster pace this year and can throw a lot more young defenders at opponents, so there will still be on-court benefits to the youth and depth, especially if some of them continue shooting the ball well.

I would like to withhold my answer until after the deadline. Forced to answer now, allow me three notes:

The Cavaliers have exactly no path to being a good defense, no matter what gear they shift into. That’s important.

Everyone around the team – writers, fans, anonymous sources – swear it feels different this year than in years prior. That’s important.

Barring the biggest surprise in NBA history, the Cavaliers still employ LeBron James. That’s maybe the most important.

I’m at a point with the Cavs where I still think you’d call them the favorite team to come out of the East, but I’d bet on “the field” if I had to pick (e.g. the Cavs may have a 35% chance, Raptors 30, Celtics 30, everyone else 5, or something like that; I’m just using an example). They’re vulnerable. James retains the benefit of the doubt without an obvious No. 1 in his stead.

Raps have to go 25-6 the rest of the way to hit 60 wins. Do you think they do it?

As of this writing, they’d now have to go 24-6, a 66-win pace. I’ll take the under. They have three games left with Boston, two with Cleveland, one each with Houston, Oklahoma City, Milwaukee, and Washington, two with Detroit if they matter to you, and six back-to-back scenarios. That’s just too many potential weighted coin-flip games before accounting for any let-down games. There’s also the potential for the Raptors to try to buy their stars some rest down the stretch with the occasional night off. They have great depth, so it’s maybe less of a risk on those nights, but it’s still a consideration. They only need to go 21-9 to put up the best season in franchise history, though, and I think that’s pretty clearly on the table.

Raptors Miscellaneous

Given the dearth of cap space around the league this summer, what kind of contract do you realistically see FVV receiving?

#RRMailbag are there comps for what fvv’s restricted contract might look like? Is it likely the raps could stay under the tax and keep him? Is it worth looking at trading him for a underperforming young guy?

Do you think the team is hopeful of moving Norm this summer in hopes of keeping FVV or do you think they may be resigned to the idea that he's likely gone after this season? Or are those two things perhaps not mutually exclusive?

Okay, well clearly, I need to write an entire piece on Fred VanVleet’s future. Quickly:

From the sound of everything out there and looking at the league’s cap sheets, VanVleet might be in tough to get a value commensurate with his actual value. Ron Baker’s deal of 2 years and $9 million should be the absolute starting point with VanVleet, but it’s unclear how the market will treat non-max restricted free agents. Teams can’t offer VanVleet more than the non-taxpayer mid-level (likely around $8.8 million starting salary), and even with how good he’s been, that’d be a big spend given what the market looks like right now. The mini-mid level ($5.4 million) might be more realistic. It’s possible VanVleet is amenable to a shorter-term deal to re-enter the market when it’s more favorable for a long-term deal. He’s bet on himself before.

The Raptors are going to be a tax team anyway, so it’s not a matter of crossing the tax line for VanVleet but managing the overall tax bill in a way that makes sense for the entire roster.

Related: I don’t think it’ll be a Powell-or-VanVleet or Wright-or-VanVleet or whatever situation so much as a holistic look at the entire roster and cap sheet. Someone will have to go, and a guard certainly makes sense the way things look right now.

I absolutely would not trade VanVleet for someone else just to avoid losing him in free agency. He’s a valuable rotation piece now, a big part of the culture they’ve created, and there’s always a chance the RFA market is cool and the Raptors are in a position to keep him. It sucks to lose players; it’s worse to trade them out of fear of losing them and risk making yourself worse in the process.

VanVleet also can’t bring much back in a trade because of his tiny salary.

This is a really tough situation. It causes me a lot of dissonance as someone pro-labor who wants to see VanVleet the person cash in big-time and also wants the Raptors to keep him. It’s a decision that, luckily, they can wait on a while longer, learning a bit more about VanVleet and the other young pieces in the playoffs and a bit more about the RFA and trade markets. This will probably the biggest story we revisit in this space in June.

Where do you think JV is going to end up as a 3 point shooter this year?

Do you think he's going to be taking a few of them in the playoffs and nailing 35+%?

I think Sunday’s game was a good snapshot of what Valanciunas’ shooting means for defenses: Charge out at him, and he can put it on the floor; sit back, he’ll shoot; play the in-between game, he’s improved making reads and passes. It doesn’t even really matter that much if Valanciunas hits threes in the playoffs if opponents are worried about it. If he’s open, he’s going to have the OK to let it fly, even in the playoffs – the Raptors were on him for not firing a clutch corner three against Utah. They’re committed to this.

In terms of percentage, 47 percent probably isn’t realistic, though that’d be hilarious. He hasn’t shot a contested one yet, and he may need to eventually. For extra context, Valanciunas shot 39.8 percent from 16 feet out last year (up from 35 percent in 2015-16), and he’s at 75 percent on those this year. He can shoot. I don’t think 35 percent on one attempt per-game is entirely unrealistic, which feels weird to say. In the words of VanVleet, it’s still really funny every time he hits one and I don’t know when that’ll go away.

If Bruno was available for this draft as a senior where do you think he would get drafted?

This is probably a better question for someone more dialed in to the depth portion of the draft here in February. I’ll gear up during conference tournaments and March Madness, then scramble to play catch-up once the season ends. Let’s look at what Caboclo’s profile would look like, though:

They haven’t updated his listing but the dude is 7 feet tall now. I’ll also eat his jersey if his “205 lbs.” listing is still accurate. He’s probably closer to 225.

He has a 7-foot-7 wingspan.

He’s near the top of the G League in nearly every defensive metric and is a safe bet for an All-G League Defense team. The G League has a certain stigma still but keep in mind that it’s a higher level of play than the NCAA.

He’s shooting 34% on a very high volume from the NBA 3-point line.

He’s 22 and has only really been playing competitive ball for three years.

That player absolutely gets drafted. Not in the lottery, and maybe it’s as a draft-and-stash or with eyes on making him a two-way player initially (Caboclo won’t be eligible in real life), but he gets drafted. Again, I’d have to defer on someone with a better feel for this draft class as to whether that’s fringe-first, early-second, or late-second or what. I still understand the experiment and can see a scenario in which he becomes an NBA bench piece, even if it’s not the most likely outcome at this snapshot.

@BlakeMurphyODC what does a typical day look like for DeMar? How different are game days and off days? How does he balance his health with improving his game? #RRmailbag

This is a question I honestly can’t really answer. The only stuff we’re privy to is post-practice shooting work and pre-game workouts. It won’t surprise you to learn that DeRozan takes his work very seriously and works very hard, even in those scenarios. His offseason workouts are the stuff of legend, and multiple times a new employee has told me that the thing that surprised them most upon arriving was something about DeRozan’s workouts or work ethic. I think during the regular season he’s probably a bit more cognizant of the physical toll on his body, though it’s not our of the ordinary to hear about him getting up shots very early or very late.

Again, I don’t get to see/learn specifics. Probably something I’d have to try to dive into long-term for a feature story, if they’d give me that access.

Where would you rate demar all time for number 9th overall picks on history. There's some massive talent in that slot what do you think his ceiling on the list is

The No. 9 slot in the draft has produced a ton of good talent. I think it says a lot that DeRozan is only 16th in all-time Win Shares for #9 picks. There’s some context there – he’s only played 647 games and advanced metrics haven’t always been kind to DeRozan – but it’s not as if he has a claim at the very top yet. You’re talking about a list that includes a Hall of Famer in Tracy McGrady, a second sure-fire Hall of Famer in Dirk Nowitzki, someone considered a minor Hall snub in Otis Thorpe, multi-time All-Stars in Shawn Marion, Amar’e Stoudemire, and Andre Iguodala, and Charles Oakley, who can rank on this list wherever he damn well pleases. (Joakim Noah, Jo Jo White, Reggie Theud, Rolando Blackman, Dale Ellis, Clarence Weatherspoon, Gordon Hayward, Andre Drummond, Kemba Walker, and Stacey Augmon are also former No. 9 picks; this runs deep.

His ceiling on this list is pretty high, depending on how well you think his game will hold up into his early 30s (the addition of a 3-point shot should help). Nowitzki and McGrady form a pretty high bar, and DeRozan might have to win a ring to get in the conversation with Nowitzki, who is going to end up with just a remarkable resume. Can he make a run at McGrady? It’s tough to say, because he’d have to make the Hall to catch him in most people’s minds, and he’ll need to sustain this level a while longer. Perhaps Marion is the target, then, to get him in the top-three. Marion was never this kind of offensive player, obviously, and DeRozan has already matched him in All-Star berths, but he was an All-Defense stalwart and played nearly 1,200 games and has a ring.

It all comes down to longevity here. DeRozan is off to a tremendous start to his career, and his continued improvements make it easier to buy into him sustaining it past the normal downturn point for score-first wings. He’d have a narrative boost, too, if he spends his entire career with Toronto, as those players always seem a bit more special historically. And, you know, a ring goes an immensely long way. So go win one, yeah?

Does TO have a "Go Daddy" jinx? JV struggled last year after he got his site up, Norm this year (thankfully a good few games of late). #RRMailbag

I’m not sure what the exact spirit of this question was. If you just mean what’s my favorite thing I’ve broken, it’s probably the VanVleet signing. If you’re looking for some off-record backstage stuff, you might have to get some drinks into me. Usually if there’s anything good night-to-night and it’s OK to share, I’ll tweet it out – the Raptors are pretty entertaining in those ways. And if it’s just something I’ve heard around the team that I enjoyed, the stories of Norman Powell’s draft workout are the stuff of legend. Hit me up on Twitter and let me know more specifically what you were asking for here and I’ll give a better answer.

this season, wat has been the raptors best win and their worst loss? conversely, wat has been their worst win and their best loss? why?

Non-Raptors

For those unfamiliar, Wigginton is a 6-foot-2 guard from Dartmouth and is a freshman at Iowa State. Specific to the question, I don’t have much of a feel as to whether Wigginton will declare or return for a sophomore season (Jonathan Givony of ESPN does not have him in his top 100, so I’d assume that means it’ll make sense for him to head back). He’s having a nice freshman year from the looks of it – 16 points per-game, 44.2 percent on threes, and he’s posted 13 assists over his last two games (a necessary area for improvement since he probably needs to play at least some point guard at the next level). He had a huge game in an upset win over West Virginia last week, too, that I’ve been trying to find a torrent of to check out.

How often do NBA players ask you for beard tips given your magestic face bush?

Nobody has asked. The Raptors are a low-beard team. VanVleet keeps it tight and does not need any help. Valanciunas has shown respect for mine but doesn’t really need tips. I did trade beard oil strategies with Russell Martin at Spring Training in 2016 (he uses Tom Ford; I can not relate, as I use “the free stuff start-up beard product companies send me for some reason”) and debated with Richard Amardi about whether it was better to comb a beard down for presentability or pick it out for fluffiness (I have to do the former, lest I get “are you okay?” questions).

Cody – this would have been a good DeMarre Carroll one given the coats; tough with this roster

Hangman Page – Serge Ibaka (I mean, obviously)

Marty Scurll – Bebe (the singing)

Chuckie T – Kyle Lowry

Flip Gordon – BRUNO

Bullet Club is fine, by the way.

Now that it's been a few days and Supercard of Honor's main event has been set, what did you think of the Golden Lovers' apparent reunion at New Beginning? Are we heading for a dastardly turn by Omega later in the year for a WK13 match vs Ibushi?

Mark is trying to kill me by asking me a Golkden Lovers question when we’re already (literally) 5,000 words in. And to be honest, I’m not even sure my heart is ready to talk about this. On the one hand, it makes me believe that true love is real, and powerful, and can overcome anything. On the other, it’s a reminder that I will never have a love like this. It’s worth Bullet Club being destroyed for true love to flourish, and Golden Lovers vs. Young Bucks at All-In is going to be painful. True love will prevail.

It’s pretty incredible how well these guys have blended stories across their YouTube series, ROH, and NJPW, with commitment to every little detail being ironed out (the Bucks haven’t seven been tweeting, Cody had to take over the bulk of BTE, the Kenny/Kota statements at pressers, and so on). It’s really special, as is the years-long story they’ve told with Omega and Ibushi (honestly, I want to write 2,500 words about this and pitch it somewhere; hi, editors). In terms of story progression, I think Cody-Kenny will be good, and maybe Cody can top the Ibushi match as his best ever given the story involved. There are so many layers and ways it can go, it’s tough to get a good feel two months out – Page, Scurll, and the Bucks all have roles to play in the split, too.

Anyway, I need more words to sort out my thoughts and feelings and predictions. I’m really excited by all of it. Tremendous storytelling, acting, wrestling…it’s been great stuff. That Wrestlemania weekend should be awesome. A friend is going and I’m quite jealous.

—

As a reminder, if you appreciate the content we produce, want to support RR, and have the means to do so, we’ve started a Patreon page at patreon.com/RaptorsRepublic. Any contribution is greatly appreciated and will help us continue to do what we do, and try to do even more.

The Toronto Raptors talked it up as just One of 82, their usual pre-game parlance about marquee regular season competition. Down Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka, maybe the Raptors wanted to give themselves some deniability if they couldn’t hang with a rested Cleveland Cavaliers team on national TV. Maybe in year five of playing at this level, they really don’t psych themselves up for proving-ground matchups.

Whatever the truth and however earnest the belief that they wouldn’t live or die with a win or loss at the Air Canada Centre on Thursday, the Raptors played like their lives depended on it. Up against an opponent who have a gear switch in either direction, up or down, the Raptors played exactly the type of game they envision themselves winning against elite competition with a few months from now. Even without Lowry, the ball whirred around the floor, a major issue in their first game without him. Even without Ibaka, the defense was energetic and stingy in the paint. Even against a team that’s beat them in two consecutive playoffs, the Raptors showed little deference to their reputation in running them off the floor with a 133-99 victory.

The game was a lot about seeing where they could take advantage of the opponent’s weaknesses rather than necessarily mixing things up themselves. The Raptors started smaller out of necessity with Serge Ibaka suspended, and that seemed to work well against the Cavaliers’ porous defense. Not only did C.J. Miles added a necessary element of spacing, but even small the Raptors were able to dominate the offensive glass. That wasn’t the only byproduct of Cleveland’s pick-and-roll strategy, either, even as they more or less ignored OG Anunoby. Jonas Valanciunas was masterful early working with what the Cavs were willing to give him, hitting Kevin Love with a pump-fake and drive, looking for Miles out of the 4-on-3, and pulling up in the short-roll for mid-range jumpers. He nearly had a double-double when he had to sub out with a second early foul, a soft one on LeBron James in transition.

And really, James “something something” was the counter for everything the Raptors did. Anunoby and Delon Wright did a nice job frustrating Isaiah Thomas as he works his way back into a comfort zone, and Thomas even looked hesitant against Valanciunas drop-backs. James is James, though, and he put up 11 first-half points mostly on will alone. Add in Tristan Thompson working over Jakob Poeltl on the Raptors’ glass – a byproduct of Poeltl being asked to use his mobility to over-help on James – and the Raptors’ defense wasn’t quite where it needed to be. Still, they held a 30-24 lead after a quarter, as good a place as they could have hoped to be.

The point guards contributing made a difference, too. Wright had a number of his usual heart-eye-emoji plays in the first, then ceded the reigns to Fred VanVleet, who canned a three and scored on a tough cut thanks to a good pass out of a trap from DeMar DeRozan. Lorenzo Brown factored in, too, after playing 34 minutes earlier in the day, promptly finding VanVleet for three. VanVleet was really good leading the all-bench group here, and with Norman Powell hitting from deep and Pascal Siakam making two nice finishes around the rim, they managed to outpace Cavaliers hybrid groups by six in the four minutes James sat.

“I was really proud of the way he came to play tonight,” head coach Dwane Casey said of VanVleet. “I was talking to him before the game about the young guys playing and producing and him stepping in. I didn’t think we approached the game against Miami the way we normally do. But tonight Fred came in ready to go. I thought JV set the tone with his rebounding which was our Achilles’ Heel the other night against Miami. We got killed by I think it was 20 offensive rebounds. Tonight Jonas did a heck of a job. Jakob did a heckuva job and that kind of set the tone the rest of the night.”

It was just a massive win, and the fact that James was back in so soon in a January game without Ibaka and Kyle Lowry says a lot about the vibe there. It might also raise a longer-term questions of just how much the Cavs can trust their bench against better benches in April and May. Of course, even as James came in, every bench player to a man continued rolling, and a Poeltl mega-block on Jae Crowder fueled a Powell attack the other way that put the Raptors up 17 and sent Ty Lue running for a timeout. It’s hard to overstate just how well all five bench players played here, and when Siakam finished a tremendous individual stretch by stopping James on a drive, hitting Love with an up-and-under in the post, then blowing by him for a dunk, the Air Canada Centre felt ready to explode.

“I think that was one of our advantages tonight, especially the second unit, was just playing fast,” VanVleet said. “We were able to get stops. The first unit did a good job of setting the tone defensively, and we came in and continued that, got stops, played in transition. You know, Pascal’s running, me and Norm pushing, spotting up, some of those threes go down and then the lead gets a little bigger and bigger. We gotta use that as one of our advantages, is our youth and speed and fresh legs, and we gotta take advantage of that.”

Drake may have even spilled his drink, I’m not sure. Literally the only negative about the second quarter was Valanciunas picking up a third foul, and even that didn’t come until he already had a double-double. James looked genuinely annoyed at his team’s performance, then fairly checked out himself. And yes, the usual caveats apply with the Cavaliers (Cav-eats, get it?) about their effort – James chewing out his teammates is an argument against, anyway – but any stretch of play like that is going to be a huge confidence boost for a young group, especially against the odds of coming in shorthanded against a quality team. If nothing else gets taken away from it, that confidence can, and that’s not nothing.

The third didn’t start much differently, with DeRozan picking up where he left off after seven first-half assists and the Cavaliers needing a timeout two minutes in on the wrong end of a 10-2 run. DeRozan hit a three, too, a relative footnote on a night like this where he so seamlessly found his teammates, offered up an array of pretty passes, and showed just how great a distributor he can be against increased defensive attention (he also had a solid defensive game).

“He did a GREAT job,” Casey said. “That is one of the best jobs of DeMar just taking what the game gave him. He let the game come to him. He was inviting and embracing the double teams and then picking them apart. ”

Games aren’t going to be raging runs forever in most cases, and so some regression set in and the Cavaliers took advantage of some Raptors sloppiness for a mini-run to close the gap some. Valanciunas was stripped in the post twice, James got the give-a-damn meter off of zero, and the Raptors got into the penalty early despite some nice individual efforts (particularly from Anunoby and Valanciunas). Cleveland picked up some energy as a result, and because of the extra gear they possess, it felt a little worrisome when the lead came down from 33 to 23. The Cavs got into the penalty, too, though the whistle cost Toronto more, specifically when Valanciunas picked up another soft one to prevent him from a three-quarter 20-and-20.

Any remaining doubt about the outcome was put to rest at the end of the third, when Anunoby and VanVleet hit consecutive threes, the former snapping a tough 0-fer night to that point and the latter pushing to a career-high in scoring (19 at that point). DeRozan nailed two late, as well, pushing the lead to 100-72 entering the fourth.

The fourth quarter was about how you’d expect for a near-30-point game with one side clearly checked out and the other possessing the kind of young bench that only knows one effort level, anyway. There were a handful of more positives here, like VanVleet pushing to 22 points with a Curry-deep three, Poeltl nudging to a double-double, Powell continuing a palate-cleansing game, Malcolm Miller minutes, and Brown actually shooting (a dunk no less!). On top of all of that, DeRozan only had to play 29 minutes, finishing with a quiet 13 points and eight confidence-inspiring assists. Plus, a Jose Calderon appearance! By the final buzzer, the Raptors had hung a franchise-record 133 regulation points on the Cavs, the end of the bench never once letting up.

the raptors can't even play a garbage time lineup, because the garbage time lineup is the same one that been washing the cavs all night.

From what I gathered, the TNT broadcast was heavy on excuses for the Cavaliers. They’re without pieces, Thomas is being worked back in, and so on. The real culprit might be a few too many nights in Toronto. Really, though, the Cavaliers can feel apathy toward this game without it taking away from Toronto. Whatever Cleveland had going on, the Raptors were still down two of their three best players and absolutely hammered a team they’re fighting for position with in the Eastern Conference. Weird though it sounds, games are zero-sum in the win column only and not necessarily in spirit. The Raptors proved to themselves that they can hang even without key pieces, and the bench showed with some level of emphasis that they have the tools to be a problem against good teams. It’s not like the Cavs are getting younger when they start trying harder in April (though they will, I think, be trying much harder).

“You know, any time you get a national TV game – we don’t get many up here – in the States, obviously you wanna take advantage of that,” VanVleet said. “But we’re not looking at as the Cavs or anything. Obviously, they’re a really good team, but we know the real trophies are handed out in June. It’s just a good win for us after a pretty bad feeling we had the other night dropping that one to the Heat the way we did. It was a good win for us and we’re looking forward to trying to come out again and try to do it again on Saturday.”

JV photobombed VanVleet with “52” scratcher our from DeMar’s game and “22” written on it. VanVleet also said he woulda got 30 if he wasn’t trying to get Norm going, and Norm hasn’t congratulated him, so “I’ll go for the points next time.”

The Raptors get another good test Saturday, armed with some pretty heavy momentum. DeRozan will have played 29 minutes in the four days preceding, Ibaka none. Lowry doesn’t sound like he’s going to be ready, but it’s a long time away in soreness terms. However that goes, it will be the best first half in Raptors history, and they’ll have turned in one hell of a performance on national TV on at least one leg of their big midseason showcase against contenders.

]]>Injuries are not taking the luster off of Thursday’s matchup between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Toronto Raptors, if the Air Canada Centre in the hours prior is any indication. With executives from all around the league in town for the mini-summit that the G League Showcase creates and the Raptors hosting their two-time playoff foe on TNT in the United States, the national media presence is strong. This is mostly inconsequential for the on-court proceedings, but I mention it because fans seem to care a fair amount about this cross-over coverage of the Raptors.

The Raptors, though, are trying to take it in stride. They’ll be out Serge Ibaka due to suspension and are unlikely to have Kyle Lowry, which has made them an underdog at home. Maybe that veil of being shorthanded and an underdog frees them up from an energy perspective, whereas a fully equipped Raptors team might be feeling pressure from a would-be measuring-stick game. For their part, they’re admitting the gravitas of the situation but insulating themselves from it a bit, too.

“It’s an important game, I’m not going to take it away from that,” head coach Dwane Casey said at shootaround. “But it’s not going to define who we are, who they are, win, lose or draw. You’ve got to take care of business in your conference, and then head-to-head games are important, too. But you can’t go into it like it’s do or die.”

A win also may mean something to Casey. The coach with the best record as of Feb. 4 coaches the All-Star team in each conference, and since Brad Stevens coached last year and is ineligible, it seems either Casey or Ty Lue will be getting the nod. A win here would help in the standings and for tiebreaker, though Casey would surely tell you that’s not on his mind.

Raptors updatesSomehow, the discipline from the league didn’t come down evenly, so the sides won’t be equitably thinned out here. Serge Ibaka is suspended, and Kyle Lowry is listed as questionable but was considered unlikely to play by Masai Ujiri on the radio last night and by beat writers who were at shootaround (I was at the G League Showcase, my bad). Casey confirmed pre-game that he’s out, getting ahead of things. That means everyone slides up a spot at the point guard depth chart, C.J. Miles or Pascal Siakam get a start at power forward (the team likely won’t reveal until close to tip-off), and a few others will see their roles expanded.

“That’s why you have 15 on the roster. Other guys have to fill in,” Casey said. “The old saying is next man up is very relevant tonight with two starters out. They’re not gonna change the game. They’re not gonna cancel the game. Guys who have been wanting playing time and needing playing time, they’re going to have an opportunity.”

If you could almost feel Casey looking at Norman Powell as he said that, you’re not alone. This should be a big opportunity for Delon Wright, too, as he’s adept at forcing live-ball turnovers and the Cavaliers are particularly shaky giving up corner threes in transition. They’ll work to get the ball away from the primary ball-handler – whether it be Wright, DeMar DeRozan, or whomever – and it’ll fall on the Raptors support pieces to make Cleveland pay accordingly. It’s obviously tougher when every player playing is a support piece, but as Casey put it at shootaround, “life is challenging.”

The challenge for the Raptors will be giving DeRozan enough help, something Miles talked about at length at shootaround.

Cavaliers updatesAs mentioned, justice isn’t, uhh, just, and so the Cavaliers will have Isaiah Thomas here despite his Stan Hansen impression the other night. Thomas is still working his way back to form, appearing in three games and looking shaky in at least one of them.

“Just having him out there, having another threat,” LeBron James said of Thomas. “The guy was out from playing basketball for seven month so it’s going to take while to get his rhythm back as you can tell, as you could see on the floor, get his wind back, his cardio, get his legs back underneath him. To know that that he’s playing in [consecutive] games is a good start in the right direction.”

The Cavaliers can afford to be patient bringing him along, though it does open the window here a bit for the Raptors to take advantage of a poor defensive team working a high-usage piece back in. There are areas the Raptors can take advantage. It’s not an obvious loss just because Lowry and Ibaka are down.

UPDATE: Ty Lue was apparently mis-heard pre-game. Originally, it was passed on that Isaiah Thomas was out, but listening back, Lue actually said Thomas will sit Friday on the second night of the back-to-back.

Raptors 905 are home for the G League Showcase. All of Lorenzo Brown, Malcolm Miller, Alfonzo McKinnie, and Bruno Caboclo played in the team’s 12 pm game earlier today, and all four are back with the team here. Three will be active.

Here’s LeBron James on the Raptors and their fans from shootaround: “They’re playing some really, really good basketball over the course of the year. Obviously the injury to Kyle and the suspension of Serge they’ll be just a little bit different, but the level DeRozan is playing out right now, they’re very good still. We’re looking forward to the challenge and coming in this building, it’s always a great environment to play in.”

The lineThe Raptors are 3-point underdogs, a little tighter than the Cavaliers -3.5 line they opened at. The over-under is at 223.

]]>https://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2018/01/11/pre-game-news-notes-lowry-ibaka-big-cavs-visit/feed/0Raptors don’t go down quietly, but they go down nonethelesshttps://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2017/05/08/raptors-dont-go-quietly-go-nonetheless/
https://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2017/05/08/raptors-dont-go-quietly-go-nonetheless/#respondMon, 08 May 2017 13:00:24 +0000http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/?p=82467Damned if they didn't fight like hell.

Faced with a 3-0 series hole against the Cleveland Cavaliers, looking down the barrel of a deficit nobody has ever overcome, against a team decidedly better than them, and playing without one of their two All-Stars, the Raptors talked up a few potential reasons to give a damn in what could have been a boilerplate sweep conclusion: Pride. To prove something. To give themselves another opportunity to have another opportunity. Whatever the reasons, it was always going to be a more admirable ending if the Raptors went down swinging, and while that’s long been their modus operandi, it would have been understandable if they just didn’t have them in it one more time.

They did. In a pretty serious way, for as much as it mattered. Cleveland may not have taken things all that seriously or felt threatened during the course of the series, but for a day, at least, they got the kind of tune-up they might have been looking for, even if they still ultimately secured their extra week off between rounds. The Raptors pushed them more here than they had before, an appreciated cap on a trying, up-and-down, vaguely successful season.

“I thought we could have played better the first three games. Today, I thought the guys played,” head coach Dwane Casey said. “In that do-or-die situation, guys can easily pack it in. I thought our guys played with grit, toughness, togetherness. I think it’s a testament to their character and the culture that those guys have created.”

To say the Cavaliers came out of the gate a little slowly would be a bit of an understatement. As is customary for all non-Game 1s that tip off on a weekend afternoon in Toronto, the opponent looked a little, uhh, lethargic. Outside of J.R. Smith, nobody on the Cleveland looked particularly interested on the defensive side of the ball, and the legs didn’t appear to be underneath the jumpers just yet. No shootaround kills. The Raptors, though, were geared up, led by P.J. Tucker joining the starting lineup and barking “We’re not done yet” after a made three.

The energy gap and some eventual shot-making after the teams combined to start 0-of-9 allowed the Raptors to start the game hot for what felt like the first time all playoffs. The fifth different starting lineup in the last five games led 14-6 as the Cavaliers called a first timeout, and Channing Frye’s triple immediately upon entering only temporarily slowed things. The lead would grow to 11, Toronto’s largest of the series, and things were going well enough for Drake to dribble a ball in his seat with the look of existential, Take Care-level dread momentarily leaving his face.

There were signs this would be fleeting, though. With the lead trimmed back to three, Serge Ibaka would miss a baseline floater, and when Tucker went to save the offensive rebound, he’d inadvertently start the Cavaliers the other way. If there’s a defining image of the series other than Cavaliers hitting threes in Raptor eyes, it’s probably LeBron James getting an and-one in transition, which is what came next. That tied the game at the end of the quarter, good vibes sufficiently squandered, and Deron Williams would further deliver the “oh yeah, the Cavs” when he lost the ball on a swing pass, recovered it, and let fly for a three and Cleveland’s first lead since the game’s opening bucket.

To their credit, the Raptors weren’t going to leave anything to chance. After scoring five points with four assists in the first, DeMar DeRozan didn’t take his customary rest to start the second, sending a pretty clear indication he was planning to play all 48 minutes. Looking to get him off the floor, the Cavaliers responded with an Iman Shumpert kick to the Comptons. Shumpert received a technical but DeRozan was forced to take a breather, and the Cavaliers went on a quick 8-3 run to take their first multi-possession lead.

From there, things kind of gave way to the way they’ve gone all series. The Raptors missed a pair of really good looks from long-range sandwiched around a Tucker offensive rebound, Kyle Korver started spitting napalm, and the Cavs were up double-digits before the Raptors knew their lead was gone. Cleveland’s edge in bench scoring with the Raptors’ lacking Kyle Lowry (and thus Cory Joseph in the second unit and Lowry helping create for the bench) continued to be an issue, and the difference in shot-making, reductive though it’s sounded all series, continued to rear its head.

Even when the Raptors got a break like a Tucker strip on Kyrie Irving, it swung right back with something like Irving stripping the ball back on the break and feeding James behind the play. Trying to stay aggressive and assertive, the Raptors wound up mostly just making careless turnovers. Korver hit more beautiful jumpers, even blocked a DeRozan attempt in the paint, and finished the half with 16 points as the Cavaliers took a 61-49 lead into the break.

Same as it ever was in this series.

The Raptors still came out fighting in the third quarter, and even had momentum in their favor a little bit. With the Air Canada Centre crowd responding to each bucket, Tyronn Lue was forced into using a pair of timeouts barely two minutes apart to try to settle things, the Raptors having cut the lead to seven despite the unfair development of James raining threes. As Cleveland tried to pull back away, the Raptors wore the exhaustion of the uphill battle of the series, the entire game an exercise in gallantry. Threes were fired without the requisite legs beneath them. Heads hung, hands on knees, after drawing fouls. Tucker was helped off the deck by James, one of the lone shows of respect after the former spent the entire game guarding the latter nearly possession after possession, at the very least making him work for all of his 35 points, nine rebounds, and six assists.

“He did a great job,” DeRozan said. “P.J. is definitely one of the best defenders in our league. He went up against one of the best in our league as well. He did a great job, but when a guy like LeBron locks in, it’s tough to stop him one on one.”

Somehow, the Raptors trailed by just five entering the fourth, a Tucker corner three ending the third. They couldn’t afford to take anything but their best shot starting the frame, and that meant players fighting through the physical fatigue of another short-rotation game and the psychological fatigue of a two-year chase, one that felt asymptotic at even the best of times, that this game was perfectly emblematic of.

As the Raptors kept fighting – a Tucker three, a Patrick Patterson strip, a Fred VanVleet triple (likely in the game over Delon Wright in this one because he might be the team’s best spot-up shooter with Lowry out) – James and the Cavaliers kept responding just enough to keep them at arm’s length, because that’s what James does. Down 92-90, Norman Powell made a crucial foul in a good way, picking one up off the ball before Korver sank a three on a beautiful elevator-doors play, negating the triple. Moments later, Ibaka would hit a mid-range jumper with the foul, giving the Raptors their first lead since midway through the second. The Raptors even trapped Irving well and nearly stole an inbound right after, only for the Cavs to keep possession and Irving with a three.

“He made some tough shots,” Joseph said. “That’s what great players do. He made one three between his legs, step-back, and I was right there, and he went to the basket next time and I think he shot an off-glass left-handed one. It’s tough.”

That, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be Toronto’s last gas. They’d continue fighting, of course, with all five starters finishing off good-to-great efforts, hitting the deck, battling, and in the cases of Tucker and DeRozan, playing almost every last damn minute. But that three wound up a part of an 11-2 run for Irving alone, and with shot quality at the offensive end becoming as extinct as their namesake, the Raptors could no longer keep up. Yet another James three, his 13th on just 26 attempts in the series, wrapped things up.

“At times, we’d make a run, they’ll hit timely threes and push the game back open, and it was tough for us to catch back up,” Joseph said.

There is execution down the stretch to quibble with, of course, and some may have preferred a different closing five, or the five that closed to get a look earlier. DeRozan looked spent by the end, too, not that you can really blame him. At the micro level, a few things could have broken differently to see them extend the series to five. That was true until the early part of the fourth on Friday, too. At the macro level, though, it wouldn’t have mattered a ton. The Raptors weren’t coming back in this series, and a Game 5 in Cleveland that could have been a blowout like the final two games of last year may have even ended the season on a more dour note. A win at some point would have been a nice affirmation of the gradual uptick in effort and desperation over the course of the series, and despite the end result, this was truly a valiant effort.

All series, the story has been just how good the Cavaliers are. How well they execute, the ridiculous rate they’ve hit even well-contested shots, and how far away Toronto is at a sheer talent level. The Raptors became the near-consensus biggest threat to the Cavaliers because they are closer than most on that same talent scale, sure, but it was also because of their history of turning in gritty efforts like this, occasionally playing above their talent, and always making themselves a tough out. They’d lost that a bit over the last few months. Whatever happens from here now that they’re eliminated, it’s better that they went out this way, grinding and battling and fighting against inevitability until the final buzzer.

“It feels bad and it was ugly but it shouldn’t diminish the excellent regular season we had,” Casey said.”

There’s something to be said for dying by the means that have defined you, and there’s a dignity in at least refusing to go quietly, even in defeat.

]]>“It feels bad and it was ugly but it shouldn’t diminish the excellent regular season we had.”

That was Toronto Raptors head coach Dwane Casey after his team was swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday. The degree to which you agree with that statement depends on your outlook on the team and sports in general, and I’m not here to tell you how to be a fan. For some perspective, though, the Raptors did win 50 games again and make the second round of the playoffs, feats they had accomplished zero and one times before last season. It’s nice to sustain some success, even if it’s at a level or two below the ultimate goal.

Contextualizing the season and this playoff sweep is, of course, an activity for the weeks and months to come, and everyone is welcome to their own take on the past, present, and future.

An assortment of end-of-series/season quotes

The Raptors will clean out their lockers and be available for a full postmortem tomorrow, but there were a few comments as it pertains to their potential future after this one.

DeMar DeRozan: “At the end of the day, you gotta give them credit. They’re a hell of a team for a reason. They got one of the greatest players of all time. It’s on us to let this sink in and understand we gotta come back extremely better, individual and team wise. It’s something that we got great experience with playing these guys two years in a row. We just gotta figure it out. We gotta figure it out.”

Dwane Casey: “It’s tough. We know we could have played better in the first three games.”

Jonas Valanciunas: “We can’t just look back now and feel sorry for ourselves. We gotta learn from that.”

Patrick Patterson: “I can’t really say right now if it’s a step back, I just know it’s not a step forward.”

Casey also put some of the shortcomings on his own shoulders: “We all want to win. I don’t know if we’re there yet. We’re knocking on the door. I like our team. I wish we had a little more time to jell together. I didn’t do a good enough job getting them to jell, quick enough to play at a championship level.”

More DeRozan, on possibly breaking up the core: “It’s hard to break down a team that won 50-plus games two years in a row, with the core guys. That’s on upper management.”

More Casey, on the same: “I’m going to leave that up to Masai. We haven’t talked about it. We’ve been trying to win this series. It’s something where we have some free agents. Those decisions will be up to Masai and Jeff. We’ll sit down and talk about those things. Right now is not the time to even think about those things.”

The 3s, man

As I wrote at The Athletic yesterday, this series threatened to have the largest 3-point disparity between teams in any series ever. Well, congratulations! With a 16-10 edge in Game 4, the Cavaliers out-shot the Raptors by 34 made threes in this series, tied for the most ever for a four-game set (the 2006 Suns hit 46 more threes than the Clippers, which is the biggest gap for any series ever).

Team 1

Team 2

Playoffs

3-Point Edge

Net Points

Cavaliers

Raptors

2011

34

102

Mavericks

Lakers

2016

34

102

Cavaliers

Hawks

2010

30

90

Magic

Hawks

2017

29

87

Magic

Bobcats

2010

26

78

To say this will be a point of emphasis in the offseason, if the Raptors opt to keep pieces together and compete once again, is an understatement, though there’s not a very clear path to adding inexpensive shooting this summer.

It isn’t strictly a talent disparity, to be clear. The Raptors’ were without Kyle Lowry, their best 3-point shooter and creator of threes for others, and more or less banished DeMarre Carroll from the rotation. Cleveland also hit a ludicrous percentage of their contested looks, while the Raptors hit an inordinately low number of theirs. That would even out over time some, but there’s not time for it to even out here.

“They got a great 3-point shooting team,” Cory Joseph said. “At times, we’d make a run, they’ll hit timely threes and push the game back open, and it was tough for us to catch back up.”

It certainly didn’t help that LeBron James, only a slightly above-average long-range shooter, went 13-of-27 for the series, most of them pull-ups and a fair share contested.

“When LeBron is shooting the 3-ball he is, at the rate he’s shooting it at the average he’s shooting it, they’re difficult,” Casey said. “I’m not saying it’s impossible. But they’re very difficult to beat when he’s shooting the ball like that because the ball is so spread.”

Good luck, whoever’s next.

This should be a crime

LeBron James averaged 36 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 5.3 assists in the series while shooting 57.3 percent overall, 48.1 percent on threes, and 83.3 percent at the line.

Facing perhaps his last game as a member of the Toronto Raptors, Kyle Lowry once again sat out due to a left ankle sprain. Lowry had said at practice Saturday that in pushing so hard to play Friday, he may have made things even worse. He won’t get a chance to return this year, surely a disappointing end to his season.

Lowry now has seven days to exercise or decline his $12-million player option for the 2017-18 season. He will decline it, but officially doing so (or not exercising it) is a necessary formality. There’s also this:

Late-season rumbles that Kyle Lowry will give legit thought to a free-agent switch to the West are sure to rise in volume after this series

Serge Ibaka noted he’s been slowed by an ankle injury as well. You’ll recall he first suffered that injury in the opening round but didn’t miss any time.

Lineup Notes

The Raptors starters were +7 in 20 minutes together, which is easily the best mark for any starting unit in this series and may have been the best of the postseason.

Just shocking that starting P.J. Tucker was a boost, right? He wouldn’t be able to play 46 minutes at that level every night, and LeBron James still went off, but Tucker’s effort was incredible. He was a -7 here, finished the series with one of the better net ratings on the team, and the playoffs with the best defensive rating (103.4) of any rotation regular.

Here’s Casey on Tucker’s job on LeBron James: “I thought he was probably as aggressive on Lebron as he has been in the entire series. I thought he got into him. James had six turnovers. I thought a lot of that was Tuck being into him and I think that is what you have to do. LeBron is one of the best who has ever played the game but still you got to get into him.”

The starters with Norman Powell in for Jonas Valanciunas were -5 in 10 minutes, most of them high-leverage.

A DeMar DeRozan-P.J. Tucker-bench unit was +4 in 3 minutes. Shout out to Fred VanVleet.

That same group with Serge Ibaka in Patrick Patterson’s spot went -8 in 3 minutes.

Dwane Casey suggested the groups today may have played a little better together perhaps because of greater familiarity. Basically, after the trade deadline, the team played a lot more with Cory Joseph, and the team never really got a comfort zone with Kyle Lowry after he returned late in the year.

DeRozan was asked about that and had no time for what-ifs, as usual: “If we had LeBron on our team, too, we woulda won. We can say that all day, time, everything, we didn’t. It happened. We got swept. It’s gonna be one of them long summers for us.”

Casey also kind of shot down his own what-if: “All of those are excuses. Nobody gives a crap…Again, it’s hard to say. If’s and but’s are candy and nuts and we’d all have a Merry Christmas. But nobody really cares. “

Channing Frye with the starters were +8 in 6 minutes, shooting 9-of-12 from the floor. Designated Fryever.

Deron Williams and Kyle Korver in with the starters were +11 in 5 minutes. Basically everything with Korver was lethal.

Here’s DeRozan on Korver: “They get hot. They have one of the best shooters in the league in Kyle Korver. They do a great job of getting him going. It showed tonight, it came through big for ‘em.”

Iman Shumpert had a rough series and was a -6 again here.

Assorted

On his potential future in Toronto, Serge Ibaka said he likes the city, likes playing center, and will talk it over with his daughter.

Tyronn Lue indicated that LeBron James didn’t want to come off the floor, which either speaks to a feeling the Raptors may have been able to pull it out if given a window or a real desire to get a week off.

Norman Powell told ESPN before the game that he wasn’t particularly happy with LeBron James tugging on his jersey in Game 3 to get his attention and prevent a substitution technical. It seemed mostly harmless at the time, but Powell felt there are better approaches. “Just don’t pull my jersey,” he said. “I feel like that’s a little disrespectful, you know what I’m saying? Like you’re trying to son me and I don’t go for that.”

The Raptors finished 0-3 with impending free agent Drake at the Air Canada Centre on the year.

As noted above, Kyle Lowry now has seven days to make his (obvious) decision on his player option for next year.

I’ve been posting some pics and quotes and other things to my Instagram story. Follow along there for, uhh, my offseason activities, I guess?

Locker clean-out day will take place Monday. We’ll have full coverage for you here.

On a personal note, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for reading and following along all season. I really, really appreciate you guys, through agreement and disagreement, wins and losses, re-ups and rebuilds. Thank you.

]]>Today has brought back some memories, mostly of last season’s playoff run. There wasn’t a single time I walked to the Air Canada Centre in last year’s playoffs feeling defeated, as if anything was set in stone or inevitable, as if there wasn’t all that much of a point. I still don’t feel quite like that – the Toronto Raptors could still make it a series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, and there’d at least be a less bitter taste when the season ultimately ends, plus it would kind of validate the annoying, plucky identity the never-die Raptors have lived by the last four years – but I have no illusions on a proper comeback.

That identity, remember, started with unlikely success of the #WeTheNorth marketing campaign that galvanized the fan base. That they might be about to play the last home game of the series, playoffs, season, and even era in a plain white T-shirt with the original We The North font scribbled on seems fitting. And it brings back memories.

Today is the Goodlife Marathon , for example. A year ago on the day of that event, I went from running the half to covering the Raptors beating the Indiana Pacers in Game 7 to win their first seven-game playoff series ever. (That the plantar fasciitis that plagued me for months afterwards precluded me from participating this year probably explains at least a part of my mood. So, too, does listening to Bring Me the Horizon all morning, for some reason.) On this exact day a year ago, the Raptors went into Miami and took Game 3 off of the Heat. When the Raptors hosted the Cavaliers for Game 4 a little under 52 weeks ago, they were coming off of what felt like an unlikely win at the time, then beat them again to make it a competitive sweep (in front of what was maybe the best Air Canada Centre crowd I’ve ever experienced, by the way).

The Raptors could win here. It won’t matter unless they string at least one more after it. It’ll be called a gentleman’s sweep, or whatever. And that’s fine. The Raptors have shot their shot, and barring something crazy happening, they have missed. They had to shoot it. And in the process, they’ve given four years worth of memories, good ones, ones to build from, and ones that are so much better than the rest of the history of the franchise it’s laughable.

If things end today, that’s probably what I’ll be thinking about as the final seconds tick off. Not coming up short, not falling to the Cavaliers again, not ridiculous offseason schemes that have no basis in reality, and definitely not booing. I mean, do you. But this franchise has built a ton of equity over the few years, and the crowd and fan base have been a big part of that. Players talk it up. Opponents talk it up. LeBron James dapping up the crowd after Game 6 last year is a franchise-defining moment. I’m rambling, but my point is this: The emotion and spirit right now aren’t the same as for Game 6 against Cleveland, but if this is it – for the year, and for this core in general – I’d much rather go out remembering and appreciating the era and attempt to close the gap than being disappointed it didn’t work out.

Raptors updatesKyle Lowry called himself doubtful. Head coach Dwane Casey said “I don’t think he’s gonna go.” We’ll know for sure at game time, but he’s not playing. If he can go, awesome, the Raptors will have a better chance at going out more respectably. If not, you have an idea what the rotation will look like. Cory Joseph starts, Delon Wright and Fred VanVleet split the back-up duties, and the Raptors look for somebody else to maybe hit a three. And free Bruno.

UPDATE: Lowry is officially out.

UPDATE II: P.J. Tucker starts for Norman Powell, as suggested as a “shrug” possibility in the pre-game.

Cavaliers updatesThe Cavaliers are completely healthy, so short of a few questions that don’t matter to them until the NBA Finals, anyway, this is straight-forward. Maybe they’ll activate Edy Tavares and let him get some run.

Dwane Casey was asked what was said to the team before the game to rally them up for this one. “I’m gonna keep those in the locker room.”

Part of it appeared to be revealed in this quote: “We’ve been punched and hit, we just gotta get our mojo back.”

Casey once again talked up the need for more threes. “If you miss 15, shoot 15 more,” Casey said. The team was 2-of-18 last game. They have to get more up to keep up, and they have to, you know, hope they hit more than 11 percent. “They’ve got the green light,” he said.

To those who were trying to postmortem already, Casey bristled at the idea that the Raptors have “unraveled” or failed, pointing out that they’re still a good team among the final eight in the league, they just fell (or will probably fall, I guess) short of their ultimate goal. Perspective, guys.

It took forever for anyone to ask Tyronn Lue a question, and when someone finally did, Lue let out a “Damn!”

“Just another game we gotta be prepared for,” Lue said of Cleveland’s approach today, downplaying the fact that a sweep is on the line.

He also declined to answer about tweaks to the second unit, like Tristan Thompson playing with the LeBron James-and-bench unit at the top of the second and fourth quarters.

Assorted

The fact that Kyle Lowry may have played his last game as a Raptor is kind of depressing.

I’ve been posting some pics and quotes and other things to my Instagram story. Follow along there.

The market is more or less calling this one a wrap. The series is off the board entirely, because bookmakers don’t want to waste their time with incredibly long-shot bets and the Cavaliers are heavier favorites than Game 3, likely because of Lowry’s status changing from questionable to “probably doubtful.” We’ve come a long way when the line in Toronto is the same as it opened in Cleveland, normally good for a six-to-seven point swing. The over-under is at 212.

]]>Down 3-0 to the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Toronto Raptors sound like a team that knows history and inevitability are against them. No team has ever come back from this deficit, the Raptors haven’t looked particularly close to stealing one from the favorites and reigning champions, and Saturday’s practice session had the feeling of a wake more than a pep rally.

They’ve got LeBron James. Nobody’s closing the gap on him. I mean, that’s it right there: They’ve got LeBron James and nobody’s closing the gap on him…LeBron ain’t breaking spirits here, but he’s just that good. He’s a dominant player, one of the top five most dominant players in basketball history.

On Saturday, he continued:

They’re the champs. He’s unbelievable. He’s a great player. He’s doing what his team needs for him to do. They’re the defending champs for a reason. He’s just been on another level, and he’s just raised his game. I know I’m not a LeBron, and DeMar’s not a LeBron. We push our team, and do what we need to do to get our team wins, and we’ve just got to get better. Some how, some way.

What Lowry is saying isn’t wrong, and while the Raptors have done well to take their best shot at catching up, the inevitability of James has hung over not just the series but the entire season. There’s value in trying, and the Raptors have done exactly that. That’s the plan for Game 4, as well, whatever the likelihood of a comeback.

“We’re just going to show what we’re made from,” Lowry said at practice. “Are we going to come in and give up or are we going to come in and fight? Doesn’t matter if we win or lose, we just need to come here and fight, leave everything on the court.”

Lowry talked up that winning a championship is all that matters, and while it’s unfortunate that James exists at the same time the Raptors have become as good as they have, the team wouldn’t want to simply avoid the challenge.

“That’s a challenge that you look forward to every single year,” DeMar DeRozan said. “Especially being in the Eastern Conference, I guarantee every team’s thought process is ‘let’s figure out a way to get past LeBron and you can play for a title.’ It’s a challenge that as competitors, you wanna be in these moments and measure yourself and be able to compete and see. It’s tough, it’s extremely tough, but I wouldn’t wanna go against nobody else to make it easier.”

That’s the right attitude to take, and really the only one teams can take unless they can swallow blowing things up and kicking their potential success down the line. That’s a question for after the series, of course, as it pertains to these Raptors. And while Saturday really had the feeling of a pre-postmortem, the Raptors are trying not to think that way just yet.

“As long as you understand that you have an opportunity, you can focus in on that,” DeRozan said. “Whatever comes after that, then you dwell on whatever comes after that. As long as you have an opportunity, you good.”

Then again, the writing is more or less on the wall with a deficit no team has ever come back from and…

Lowry doubtful for Game 4

After receiving treatment once again, Lowry spoke about what went in to his decision to ultimately sit out Game 3 on Friday. Lowry tried like hell to be able to go, but his sprained left ankle simply wouldn’t co-operate. Worst of all, he may have made things worse by trying so hard to suit up.

“It was close,” he said. “I mean, I was going to try, but I think I made it a little bit worse by trying to work out a few times, aggravated it a little more, trying to get out there and turn and jump and run. So it’s a little bit more sore today.”

As for Lowry’s status for what could be the last game of the series, the season, and maybe even his Raptors tenure, Lowry is going to do what he can but it doesn’t sound good.

“I’m probably doubtful,” he said. “Hopefully some things change, but right now, I don’t think I’ll be able to play…I’ve got more than 24 hours left to try to get ready to go play, but right now, it’s not looking great. But I’m not giving up on it”

It seems likely that Lowry will once again be a game-time decision, and with no shootaround due to Sunday’s early tip, his status will probably be a mystery until close to tip-off once again. The Raptors will prepare as if they won’t have him and try to encourage themselves with the 36 minutes of solid performance they turned in Friday that they can pull off an upset. Extending the series, though, would be a lot more realistic if Lowry can give them something.

“We were at 15-7 without Kyle and believe me I would take that to the bank,” Casey said, although that stretch was not nearly as impressive as the record would indicate. “We would love to have him. I hope he is able to go tomorrow but if he is not it’s a great opportunity for Cory to step in and play. I thought we played well for three quarters last night. If you have him is it going to be a different story? We don’t know. But we would much rather have him because he is the hub of our toughness, energy, all of the above. We are a better team with him.”

It would be disappointing for the Raptors’ last best shot to not include one of their stars, especially ahead of some very serious questions this offseason. Even if the series outcome is almost entirely determined, the Raptors giving it the same kind of resilient push that’s defined this core’s entire era would seem fitting.

Notes

Here’s Lowry on what-ifs: “I think a lot of things would have been different if I didn’t unfortunately have a freak injury to my wrist, bones get caught in between the joints, Norm lands on my ankle. Things happen. It just sucks when things happen like that.”

DeRozan has less time for thinking that way: “I never really dwell on it. I always take what we’re given. You have to. You can’t dwell on this person was hurt, this that…That’s one of my biggest pet peeves, is the what ifs. What if I hit the lottery? The whole dynamic of life would change if you just really played off the what-if all the time. I try never to think about it that way.”

And here’s Casey on the late-season changes and lack of familiarity late: “That’s the challenge. But I love having Serge and Tuck on our team. Getting that chemistry, the timing, the nuances of a team like that is a challenge. It’s a good challenge. I’d much rather have that challenge than not to have ‘em.”

DeRozan and Lowry were both asked about the offseason and roundabout ways. Lowry declined to answer, as he’s been adamant about all season. DeRozan, like Lowry last year, isn’t going to comment much, either: “If I thought about it, if I didn’t, it wouldn’t make a difference. I still gotta play the waiting game and see what happens. I just never dwell on it. I understand whatever happens, happens, whatever’s gonna come, is gonna come. I always been that way, you know, forever.”

Casey was asked about the team’s proximity to the Cavaliers and offered an endorsement to try again with this group: “It’s hard to say. I like our team, it’s the most talented team we’ve had…How close are we to Cleveland – if, when — it’s hard to say. If is a huge world in that situation because this group hasn’t had a training camp or time together to go against him. But I like this group, we have the right pieces in place.“

A hilarious quote from Tyronn Lue over at Cavs’ practice, when asked if the team is now defending in a way that makes a championship repeat a possibility: “Even when we weren’t defending I thought we could win a championship.”

I’ve been posting some pics and quotes and other things to my Instagram story. Follow along there, too, I guess.

]]>As the crowd starting to slowly file out of the ACC last night as early as the 5:00 minute in the fourth quarter, it all started to sink in. This was the moment where the Raptors had officially waived the proverbial white flag. It was official – any so-called belief that this team had left, was officially lost. Kyle’s face showed it, the fans showed it, and the killer instinct of the Cavs began to emerge.

The Cavaliers were capping off an epic run to begin the fourth quarter. After a pretty valiant effort by the Raptors to keep the game close for most of the first 3 and a half quarters, despite playing without their all-star point guard and emotional leader in Lowry, the Raptors showed their fan-base some fight. They showed what was desperately missing in Games 1 and 2 in this series – a defensive disposition spearheaded at the point of attack by Cory Joseph, and a scoring punch added by the mid-range maestro DeRozan who finally seemed to be turning a corner. DeMar was doing it all for the Raptors on the offensive end, shouldering a scoring load that consisted of a mostly mid-range assault. He was shaking JR Smith and Iman Shumpert for long 2’s, driving to the rack challenging Tristan Thompson at every opportunity, and making ‘em count from the stripe. But deep down, there was an empty feeling.

That empty feeling was something that’s hard to put into words. For so long, as Raptors fans enjoying the past 3 or 4 years of basketball, we’ve seen this team bounce back. So much so, that it became a undeniable mark of the team. When times got tough, we saw DeMar or Kyle, or the unlikely hero like Patrick Patterson, Cory Joseph, or Terrence Ross bring us back to a certain level of respect. But last night…felt different. Kyle was out of the lineup, the Raptors were facing the daunting task of winning 4 of 5 games against the Cavs, most of the general fan-base and media had written the team off, and with Cleveland hanging around for most of the contest at the relatively quiet and nervous ACC, things just felt uneasy. It felt as though an avalanche was coming, and perhaps this time around…there was no bounce back imminent.

That avalanche came. And there was nothing the Raptors could do. Kyle Korver cleanly came across screens, and punctured the Raptors’ souls with long-range daggers that swished so loudly, you could hear it on the broadcast. The Raptors, who entered the fourth quarter down just a point (which seemed like a mini-victory on its own), had shown some early signs. But once Korver started going, the Raptors had ZERO response. Their offense fell flat on its face. When Dwane Casey gambled early in the fourth quarter trying to buy DeMar and Cory just a few minutes of rest, LeBron and the Cavs pounced on that mistake hard. And even with DeMar and Cory back in the game just a minute later, it was too late.

In that time period, so many struggles that we’ve seen from this team throughout mid-season materialized. The offense suddenly came to a grinding halt. The ball wasn’t moving. The Cavs had figured out the DeMar-centric offense, and worst of all, the Raptors could hit NONE of their open shots. Even in the first half when things were close, that was pretty much the story of the game.

The Raptors started the game missing their first 4 wide open 3’s, and that was the tone-setter. From Ibaka, to Tucker, to Cory, the Raptors clanked open jumper after open jumper. This is National Basketball Association – the highest level of basketball there is. In this league, open jumpers are like nuggets of gold. It’s a lapse in defensive coverage that equates itself to a free-throw in the modern NBA. It’s a mistake that the offense needs to capitalize upon, especially in the playoffs where possessions are magnified, and those nuggets of gold are so hard to come by.

But basketball, my friends, is a game of a belief. As someone who’s played at the high school level, rep level, and in the occasional rec-leagues after that, I’ll say that even at the highest level, basketball is really about 60% talent, skill, scheming, game-planning, etc. and about 40% mental. Even after manufacturing an open shot using the fanciest of schemes, actually hitting the resulting open shot is so much about belief and confidence than anything else. And while the Raptors claimed to have all the belief in the world in this series, every fan in the building last night knew that this team didn’t really believe they could beat the Cleveland Cavaliers. It was blatantly obvious.

If you’ve ever played basketball competitively, you may remember playing that one team (or several teams in my case) that just intimidated the crap out of you. Even before the ball tipped off, they’d have the height advantage, guys that can dunk during layup lines, fancier uniforms, and a coach that just had a mean game face. Right then, despite the fact that you claimed to have belief when your friends would ask you about the game, you’d know deep down in your heart of hearts…that game was probably over before it even started.

So when the Raptors came out in this series missing open jump shot after open jump shot, especially in the first quarter of all 3 games, there was something clearly off. Just like an accurate free-throw shooter missing a free-throw in the clutch, this thing was in their heads. They knew that if they missed the shot, it was going to be run back for a humiliating dunk or an and-1 that was just going to be too difficult to emotionally recover from. While this sounds pathetic for an NBA franchise to be going through, especially one with a roster full of depth and playoff experience, it really speaks to the level of superiority exhibited by their opponents – King James and the Cavs.

When LeBron said that his Game 2 “spin-the-ball” free-throw routine before hitting a 3 in Ibaka’s face was a “mental thing”, he really meant it. Just like the sipping-of-beer incident, the constant smirks at the Raptors bench, and the kind of commentary we’ve been getting from the King, it was the kind of mental thing that took their opponent right out of the ball game. It meant that in the mental category of the game (the approximate 40% I’m talking about), the Cavaliers had the clear edge. The rest, as they say, is history.

I’m not trying to be too pessimistic here, since the series still could still be extended, with some optimism maybe salvaged, but it’s pretty clear that the rest of this series is simply academic. So what does this mean for Raptors fans? Where do we go from here? Since we have all summer to talk about the specifics around the roster etc., I’ll restrict the discussion of this piece to just pondering one thing – change. The kind of change that’s as much philosophical, as it is strategic. Because as we have come to realize in this playoff series, having a deep roster on paper, simply isn’t enough against the best of the best. It requires a mental makeup founded upon a strong philosophical makeup. It’s not enough to draw up open shots, if the mental makeup of players can’t seem to knock ‘em down.

That’s not to say our roster isn’t filled with great players. They can obviously win 50+ games in the regular season, win you a playoff series against average opponents, or even overachieve and beat the best once in a while. But to get that next level that the Raptors have been striving for so long to reach, it may require a mental shakeup. Excuse the cliché nature of all of this, but to be a consistent winner, you’ve got to believe like one. And while it’s hard to prove exactly what will or should be done by Masai Ujiri this off-season, what is abundantly clear is that this is a league where top-tier talent, innovative coaching, and creative offensive flair is almost always the difference. So regardless of what happens on Sunday in Game 4, when it’s all said and done, the Raptors will have to go back to the drawing board and make the kind of changes that remove that inferiority complex and make them – you guessed it – believe.

]]>https://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2017/05/06/the-mental-game/feed/0Raptors put up better fight, find themselves up against ropes anywayhttps://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2017/05/06/raptors-put-better-fight-find-ropes-anyway/
https://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2017/05/06/raptors-put-better-fight-find-ropes-anyway/#respondSat, 06 May 2017 13:00:22 +0000http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/?p=82404There's not much more to be said at this point.

The Toronto Raptors are not good enough to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers.

That much was mostly believed to be true at the series level before their second-round series began. As that series has gone on, the breadth of the situations in which that statement holds true without additional context has expanded. The Raptors are not good enough to beat the Cavaliers when the latter are at their best, when the former are at their worst, or when the two sides meet in the middle. They’re not good enough when their effort isn’t consistent and forceful, or when the Cavs’ effort is there to any meaningful degree, or when the two energy levels meet in the middle. Down 0-2, it was pretty clear that the Raptors were not beating the Cavaliers in a series, but what wasn’t yet clear is whether individual games and circumstances could break in such a way that the Raptors could once again make a series (or competitive non-series) of this matchup once again.

On Friday, the Raptors found out moments before tip-off that they likely wouldn’t have the chance to even find out. Kyle Lowry, the team’s engine and co-star, would not play, try though he might. Lowry tested out the ankle before the game, joined the team in the layup line before anthems, and even dressed just in case.

“He went out and was going to try it,” head coach Dwane Casey explained after the fact. “It was still bothering him. He was limping badly but he just couldn’t go. He wanted to.”

The sprain would not cooperate, and the Raptors suffered their first blow before the ball had been rolled in.

“I didn’t’ know ’till late, ’till they did starting lineups, he wasn’t gonna go,” DeMar DeRozan said. “It was tough. It changed your mindset, not just for me, the whole team as well. We still competed. We still gave ourselves a great opportunity.”

DeRozan is correct. After talking in boxing analogies all day, the Raptors withstood what amounted to a blow before the opening bell. This could really have gone two ways, and to their credit, the Raptors opted for the response of fighting like hell despite the loss and 0-2 series hole rather than wilting, wallowing, or walking away. That’s perhaps to be expected rather than commended, sure, but since about three minutes into Game 1 an air of inevitability has hung over this series. The Raptors decided rolling over was not how they wanted to play this out, and so they fought.

It was valiant, too. The Raptors defended with great energy and attention to detail out of the gate, and it genuinely appeared to rattle the Cavaliers, albeit not enough to urge them to dial in just yet. DeRozan took up the offensive mantle with Lowry sidelined, turning in three masterful quarters as a scorer and finishing the game with 36 points on 23 field-goal attempts. With complementary Raptors missing more or less everything – non-DeRozan Raptors shot 40.6 percent for the game – DeRozan went head-on at the extra attention being paid to him by the Cavaliers, racking up fouls early and often on J.R. Smith, making life hell for Iman Shumpert, and eventually requiring the Cavaliers to change their defensive approach late.

Following one of the worst playoff outings of his career, the contrast was stark.

“DeRozan was amazing. He gave everything he had,” LeBron James said. “You watch last series when he didn’t have a field goal, he usually bounce back. That’s what great players do.”

DeRozan would eventually slow down, though. Whether or not that had to do with Casey’s decision to rest him early in the fourth will be a matter of some debate. To that point, DeRozan had been rolling, and the Raptors trailed by just two points. But with the offensive load he was carrying, Casey wanted to get him a quick reprieve. Afterward, DeRozan didn’t feel he needed one, given the weight of the situation.

“Yeah, I coulda kept going,” he said. “I didn’t feel like I needed a blow. At this point in time, there’s no need for a rest.”

That’s what a superstar is always going to say. There are those who will feel he should have been given the chance to stay hot and keep going, others who feel it was necessary, and others still, like Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue, who thought even with the rest, DeRozan simply wore down late.

“Casey did a good job of just running some different stuff for him, trying to isolate him,” Lue explained. “So we just try to keep doing different coverages trying to wear him down. Him having to play 40 minutes and playing one-on-one and trying to go score the basketball, I thought he got tired.”

Whatever the right decision, and it’s unknowable, with respect to DeRozan, Casey almost certainly erred in resting him with Cory Joseph and Jonas Valanciunas. The break was brief, but the Cavaliers used that opportunity and the earlier momentum of Kyle Korver heating up to pull away early in the fourth. When DeRozan and Joseph checked back in, the former wasn’t able to rediscover his form against a new, switch-heavy approach with James and Tristan Thompson, and it was then that the shortcomings of his teammates on this night became even more glaring.

Because try though they did on defense and to push the ball and make the right plays, the Raptors couldn’t hit a shot to save their playoff lives. Almost quite literally – they started the game 0-of-12 on threes before eventually hitting a whopping two, and the Cavaliers loaded up the paint and around ball-handlers throughout to take advantage. It’s easy to look at the final score – a 21-point margin that betrays that this was actually a well-played game for three quarters – and determine a lot of things went wrong, but the gap in 3-point shooting remains the biggest difference between these sides. While Cleveland was hitting 13 threes on a very reasonable 23 attempts, the Raptors could hit little, and so they stopped shooting in turn.

“They really locked in. They locked in,” DeRozan said. “They packed it in on us. We couldn’t hit no shots. Just myself, us as a team, we only made two 3-pointers and both of them came late. We had some great looks and we couldn’t get none to fall for us. They turned it up offensively and ran away with it.”

With DeRozan contained and the complementary players offering little, after the bench unit Casey entrusted had let the lead swell, the Cavaliers had a momentum they weren’t going to surrender. The way those first few minutes played out are almost a microcosm of the game and their chase of the Cavaliers in general – the Raptors could try very hard and do a number of things well, but if they weren’t perfect, it wouldn’t matter.

There were a number of possessions where the Raptors defended well until Cleveland eventually broke them and found a shot. A handful of times the Raptors went a step further and for a stop only to lose an offensive rebound. The good shots Toronto missed weren’t cleaned up, as their fear of James in transition held them to a single offensive rebound. They took terrific care of the ball but managed only 17 assists on 38 field goals because the low turnovers were borne a bit from passivity.

Basically, the Raptors worked their tails off and did a number of things they’re supposed to do (or at least tried to do them), and at a certain point, they ran into the reality of what the Cavaliers are. The Raptors have faced a bit of an identity crisis in trying to tweak things in three losses now, but one part of their identity that’s not in crisis is how they measure up to Cleveland.

“We were fighting. It was up and down. We were fighting,” Valanciunas said. “Honestly, today we were not giving up but they were better than us.”

There is not a lot left to be said in this series. After the game, the Raptors talked about playing Sunday for different reasons. Joseph was adamant the team will fight back. DeRozan less so, saying it’s an opportunity to create another opportunity and take it from there. Valanciunas talked of proving something, and it felt like he meant to themselves. Casey talked about avoiding a sweep for pride.

Whatever happens, it won’t change the story of this series for a second year in a row. There’s not a ton to be upset about, I don’t think, or at least if there is, the proper place for it was after Game 2. The Raptors had even less going for them here, psychologically, in terms of shooting variance, and without Lowry, and they still fought like hell. It didn’t matter, and the degree to which that matters will vary by person and player. Sometimes things just are what they are no matter how hard you tried.

“It hasn’t worked out the way we wanted it to,” DeRozan said. “We had different expectations each and every game. Each and every game been different. Tonight we competed extremely well. It sucks when you get down late in the game, nothing could fall for us, especially in the fourth quarter, the start of the fourth quarter, especially playing without Kyle, either. It was tough but I felt like us as a team, we competed.”

Maybe that’s all they could have asked of themselves here. Maybe things will be better Sunday. Maybe they won’t, but they’ll probably feel better if they go out with another effort like this where they can point to the other team just being better than them not having given it a proper shot to find out.

]]>https://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2017/05/06/raptors-put-better-fight-find-ropes-anyway/feed/0Post-game news & notes: Raptors liked their fight, promise more Sundayhttps://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2017/05/05/post-game-news-notes-raptors-liked-fight-promise-sunday/
https://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2017/05/05/post-game-news-notes-raptors-liked-fight-promise-sunday/#respondSat, 06 May 2017 03:14:01 +0000http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/?p=82327Maybe the Raptors can force the series back to Cleveland. Beyond that, it looks bleak.

]]>After two games of getting dominated or punked or pick your word, the Toronto Raptors responded against the Cleveland Cavaliers as the series returned to the Air Canada Centre on Friday. They did. They honestly did. Even without their engine in Kyle Lowry, the Raptors brought more physicality and defensive toughness, played with more urgency, and turned in a much better effort than they had in Games 1 and 2.

“I liked our fight, I love the way our guys competed. There was no backdown,” head coach Dwane Casey said after the game.

It didn’t matter. The Cavaliers juggernaut eventually found it’s gear, the Raptors defense eventually broke down, and Toronto ran out of punches to throw and bullets to fire. Everything needs to go perfectly for Toronto in this series, and without Lowry, that was even more true. They did their best, but their best just can’t hold up to their opponent right now.

“Yeah. We were fighting. We were fighting,” Jonas Valanciunas said. “It was up and down. We were fighting. Honestly, today we were not giving up but they were better than us.”

Where the Raptors go from here is somewhat unclear because of that. The Cavaliers started out fairly slow and not quite disengaged, but not playing with the same force as they did in Cleveland. Maybe the Raptors get Lowry back, hit some more threes, and things turn out differently.

“We got another opportunity,” DeMar DeRozan said of Game 4. “We can’t look at it like history of teams being down 3-0, whatever it may be, we have an opportunity to have another opportunity and that’s all that matters, and we gotta go out and play that way.”

Casey was singing a bit of a different tune, though the difference in approach may not be as stark as the wording suggests. (Though it wasn’t the only point they disagreed on – see the Lineup Notes below.)

“Sunday’s game is about pride,” Casey said. “You don’t want to get swept. Especially in your home building and I think our guys will come out and compete on Sunday…Our team has played with pride all year long and we know who we’re playing against, we know what we’re up against, but think we have a lot of pride in our locker room.”

For others, however the result turns out, Sunday is going to be a bit of a proving ground, maybe as much to themselves as anything.

“We’re just going to show what we’re made from,” Valanciunas said. “Are we going to come in and give up or are we going to come in and fight? Doesn’t matter if we win or lose, we just need to come here and fight, leave everything on the court.”

Others still were talking in far more certain terms, refusing to talk of anything but accomplishing the nearly impossible.

The Raptors have now been outscored 93-21 on 3-point shots in this series. On Friday, the Raptors shot them more freely as they had talked up, but there’s not a lot to be done about a lack of shooting and a lack of success in that regard. And the lack of success, of course, can beget a lack of confidence, which begets a further lack of attempts, and poor shooting over a larger stretch almost makes a lack of threes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

On Friday, the Raptors missed their first 12 3-point attempts despite several of them being decent looks. You just…I mean…an 0-of-12 mark on clean triples is about as unlikely as the Cavaliers starting Game 8-of-8 on a similar quality of shots was. The Raptors didn’t heat up once Norman Powell broke the 0-fer, either, finishing the game 2-of-18 from beyond the arc, compared to 13-of-23 for the Cavaliers.

“Again, the three ball hurt us, knocking down open threes,” Casey said. “I thought we did an excellent job of moving the basketball, finding the right person. It’s something we’ve done, knock down threes all year and for whatever reason it’s escaping us right now.”

That Cleveland continues to shoot so well from outside is tough, but the Raptors at least did a good job limiting their attempts in this one. Defenses have been shown to have more control on the volume of threes rather than the rate they drop at (remember Game 2 when the Cavaliers shot better on contested than uncontested shots?), and keeping a free-shooting team like Cleveland at 23 attempts is a victory. You just can’t give them any space at all, and the Kyle Korvers of the world will find a way to get them off regardless.

“He’s automatic,” LeBron James said. “When he steps on the floor, eyes have to be on him…It helps us out a lot, all of us offensively, because it just creates more space. He’s been huge for our ball club.”

How the Raptors can get more threes into their offense is probably a challenge they won’t be able to address until the offseason. Kyle Lowry is their best 3-point shooter and is hurt. Serge Ibaka and Patrick Patterson appear to be struggling with their confidence. DeMarre Carroll is mostly out of the rotation. Powell and P.J. Tucker, the only players to hit threes in this one, will shoot but don’t command a ton of attention in the corners to help make space. Of the Cavaliers’ nine rotation players, eight shot better than 35 percent on threes this year. That number is only four for the Raptors, and one of them is (and should probably stay) out of the rotation.

“When you see them knocking down threes left and right, getting to their spots, it’s kind of deflating,” DeRozan said. “It’s tough to win a game when you only make two 3-pointers. We was in the game throughout the whole game, but you shoot 11 percent from the 3-point line. You know, it’s tough.”

They have to keep firing them, whoever’s in the game. There’s no way to keep up otherwise. But…

“You’ve got to knock them down,” Casey said. “At the end of the day like I said at the beginning of the year when we were making them, its a make or miss league.”

But damn if these numbers don’t pop. And depress.

Injury Updates – Kyle Lowry’s Game 4 status unknown

Despite being active, Kyle Lowry did not play. Initially a game-time decision after missing practice and shootaround due to a sprained left ankle, Lowry tested it out before the game and was a true last-minute call. The Raptors released on lineup until the last possible moment, and Lowry even joined his teammates on the court for the layup line about 20 minutes before tip-off, only to eventually limp off and not return until after Cory Joseph was announced as the starting point guard.

There wasn’t really much to this. When Lowry didn’t start, it was pretty clear he wouldn’t play. When Delon Wright checked in, it was even more clear. Short of maybe spotting up as a 3-point threat on a late possession in a close game, there probably wasn’t a hypothetical situation in which Lowry was going to be able to go. That the Cavaliers pulled away sealed that, but a late entrance probably wasn’t in the cards anyway.

“He went out and was going to try it,” Casey said of the warm-up. “It was still bothering him. He was limping badly but he just couldn’t go. He wanted to, the trainers and Alex, the medical people were telling him you shouldn’t try to go because he was just, he was in so much pain and he just couldn’t go. He wanted to.”

His status for Game 4 remains up in the air.

Lineup Notes

The Raptors starters were a -5 in 20 minutes. Considering they were down Lowry, playing with their fourth starting lineup in as many games, and have struggled to start halves basically for two years, that’s actually kind of a win. It was whenever any of their three offensive threats (tonight) sat that things went awry.

The starters with P.J. Tucker in Norman Powell’s place were +7 in 5 minutes, thanks in part to some hot shooting. Either of those looks let the Raptors do similar things, with a bit of an speed-strength trade-off at that position.

The starters with Patrick Patterson in Jonas Valanciunas’ place were -7 in 2 minutes. Patterson was, uhh, not good in this one.

The Raptors were -6 in 2 minutes with a Powell-Serge Ibaka-bench unit, which, you’ll note, is the one with no Cory Joseph, DeMar DeRozan, or Valanciunas. They of course needed a breather – even DeRozan is unlikely to be able to play 24 minutes straight without a quick reprieve – but sitting all three at once was a curious decision at the time and a disastrous one in retrospect.

That’s on the bench, too, as everyone outside of Tucker and maybe Wright struggled, but staggering the pieces who can create a shot would have helped. That stretch, after Kyle Korver had rained threes to end the third, basically sealed the game.

Here’s Casey on resting those three early in the fourth: “Production from our bench has to come in and give us a boost and for whatever reason they couldn’t get started. We had to give DeMar, Jonas and Cory some kind of blow…He had what, a minute and a half, I think and he needed that.”

DeRozan pretty strongly disagreed: “Yeah, I coulda kept going. I didn’t feel like I needed a blow. At this point in time, there’s no need for a rest.”

For what it’s worth, Joseph referenced “tired legs” late in the game.

The Cavaliers’ starters were -1 in 17 minutes, which is a little surprising and a nice step in the right direction for the Raptors.

The starters with Kover in place of J.R. Smith, who had foul trouble, were -7 in 5 minutes, shooting just 2-of-9.

The LeBron James-and-bench unit that’s struggled a bit was +1 in 4 minutes, shaky enough still for Tyronn Lue to go away from it in the second half.

A James-Tristan Thompson-bench unit that took its place was phenomenal, playing to a +19 in 9 minutes. Lue credited the success in part to being able to switch more DeRozan pick-and-rolls and give him a different looks than the traps he’d been dealing with all series, which took DeRozan out of his rhythm. Taking Iman Shumpert off the DeRozan island he’d been on with some help probably didn’t hurt, either.

Assorted

Some nice praise for DeMar DeRozan from LeBron James: “DeRozan was amazing. He gave everything he had. You watch last series when he didn’t have a field goal, he usually bounce back. That’s what great players do.”

I’ve been posting some pics and quotes and other things to my Instagram story. Follow along there, if you’re a glutton for the punishment. That includes LeBron’s post-game Sgt. Slaughter cosplay outfit.

Game 4 goes Friday at 3:30 p.m. here in Toronto. Will the Cavaliers be in rough shape with an early tip and a 3-0 lead? Well, they appear ready to get it out of their systems early.

LeBron, as he headed to the Cavs locker room postgame and spotted Drake: “Where are we headed tonight? Margaritas on me” pic.twitter.com/Nt62rNjMGs